I guess with the rent guarantee you would have to prove to the seller that rents fell below the threshold? 

These days, you will have a tough time just finding one that breaks even. 

(He's a well known Youtuber now so it may be tough to reach him.)

Tough to cash flow in the more expensive cities in CA at this point.

If you can find the other comps to prove the value, then it might be worth looking into. 

NJ is a tough market.

So you and your agent need to look at the data for comparable pending and (very) recently sold homes, as well as whatever active homes may be available - because solds and pending aside, the value of this prospective home will be comparatively lower if there are 15 similar homes on the market for buyers to look at compared to if there are just one, two, or zero other homes like this for buyers.And I know it's tough with HUD homes because they don't take escalators, but in the end, armed with your market analysis data, you need to bid your 'walk away' price, meaning that if you bid a dollar under what it goes for you'd be OK with not getting it, rather than kicking yourself and wishing you had bid a dollar more.

You can definitely have a more hands on approach and vet each contractor and try to manage them from afar but unless you luck out and find an incredible GC, who is not very busy, this will be quite tough. 

It's tough because we have a lot of emotional attachment to this house, but we've decided it's in the best interest of our future selves to invest in real estate now, and part of that plan is to move out of this home, and purchase another for 5% down.

@Joseph Ramirez Zillow is a tough place to find an agent relationship.