They keep living in the house.

He will be headed to a rehab center and eventually assisted living which will be costly. 

we live in Ontario and invest in Detroit  and I love the city  but one has to be more the careful and make sure their team on the gourd is outstanding...but the returns are great  and the people we have met have been wonderful  more then willing to share out story with anyone who wants to chat

Is it built to 'living space standards' and up to new IRC codes?

Not sure how to navigate buying one specifically to live in. 

Rented my house we originally lived in 12 years ago because we couldn’t sell it when we moved and that’s how we got started. 5 years ago we made a plan and an effort to accumulate multi family properties and did that.

Being based in the Raleigh area and having lived in Chicago I am biased toward Raleigh area for investing. 

Since you're living in it, the worst case scenario is paying the full mortgage which hopefully you would be able to do anyway. 

However, you can use a cost segregation study to break the property into different class lives and claim more depreciation up front.

Substitute the bad snacks with healthier snacks.