The parents of the seller clearly took excellent care of the property, however, there has been a lot of drug traffic in the past few months.

Keep distant .You tell them you’ll honor the lease and you expect them to care for your property .

If the owner doesn't care enough to find keys and grant access, you might do your best to estimate rehab costs and explain that when you make an offer (assuming a low offer).

Lenders are going to primarily care about how this type of property cash flows. 

Steer clear of sub$50k props, ESPECIALLY IF TURNKEY, because there just simply isn't enough meat on that deal for everyone to get paid, which means someone has cut corners somewhere and he'll end up holding the bag.

But, just be very careful in this space, as I am sure you would be.  

We'll cut to the chase, here's our dirt.The Facts: Ages 51/44, Married, w/10 yr. old childOne steady income 45KOne low income & fluctuating (self employed only 2 years but growing slowly)Living/ renting in NJ (Very expensive market, 2 family units sell over 500K)Fair amount of debt 37K (Car loan, 2 CC, Medical bills)Just getting by each monthCombined 401K's =  150KMy 401 (100K) can be transferred with no penalty to a self directed IRA (I had opened up last year in hopes of using some cash to invest in RE) We are determined to get into REI however we're probably going to need some creative ways to do it with our current situation.

Im sure you could... but might be as much work as doing it yourself though I have seen 3 story row houses have the bricks re-pointed with scaffolding and you could always rent a cherry picker truck... if it was on the first floor would the cracks be something you would just have the regular maintance guy take care of?

Cut them loose and start over.

And I don't think, in fact I know 1 or 2 wouldn't make the cut.