Those people, they know what they want, so they are usually good to go.First time flippers, I almost always pass on now, as 99% of them wont pull the trigger, and if they do, they usually wont take your advice and will go down in flames.Then you have the legit people, who are scared and need the hand holding. 

@Charlie MooreTaxation is very broad and there is not one person who can specialize in everything within taxation.Very similar to medicine/health.You wouldn't want someone who practices general health for children to also be the one who does open-heart surgery.There are a couple of accountant's on this message board who specialize in real estate taxation.

I won't let the experience detour or scare me out of REI. 

Right now I am trading my time for money, working a ton of overtime, and risking my health I believe in the process to piecemeal this rehab myself.I know its wordy for a first post but I appreciate ANY advice or welcome any different perspectives.

The stakes seem to be so much hire it kind of scares me into just getting that crappy apartment and waiting another 3 years until I've saved more money.

If this is bad enough to effect neighboring properties, it should be a code violation or at the bare minimum, a health and safety issue. have you tried reporting the property?

There's a lot of dirt cheap deals (under $10k for a SFH) that can be enticing, but those may be your toughest streets, but there's also huge inventory of higher priced commercial and multifamily deals that's been vacant for a while that you really can drive a hard bargain on.Detroit isn't for the novice, but don't let it scare you away, and obviously, the more ground network you have, the easier it'll be to navigate.

Would this threat scare you as a landlord?  

It’ll scare away first time home buyers but pulling down the wall paper and refinishing the hardwood floors is cheap sweat equity.

Never been scared of hard work, so I’m keeping an open mind no ego over here.