They could "loan" you the money as interest only and gift the interest back to you each year (with spouses you can do in excess of $40K per year).

I know of a couple investors who bought there using a new build to rent developer in Conroe who later found that rents were not as anticipated because of excess inventory.

I also include in each welcome packet a step by step for how to call the power company and report an outage as well as how to reset a flipped breaker.This tenant has been short term so far and has had issues paying rent every month, and makes excessive requests (in frequency and in "reasonable-ness").The tenant is not responsible for deciding if a handyman is needed, but if one is called out and it isnt a landlord responsibility, shouldn't that go back to the tenant? 

Even if we bump the vacancy up to 10%..... 20% (or $8,520/year) for maintenance seems excessive.

The ag extension services here estimate that the clay based soil in North Texas can expand and contract up to 10" (+/-) based solely on moisture content.  

She called letting us know the leak has started up again and there is now moisture in the basement.

If you get a loan to buy it initially, the entire platted lot will be taken as collateral, you'd have to survey the excess land off and refinance the duplex on a smaller lot to free it of any encumbrance, or survey off the excess and only finance the purchase on a smaller lot if the seller can do the subdivision for a new legal description.

Excess stock from homebuilders, big box stores and generous homeowners.http://www.habitatpinellas.org/restore/about_the_restore/

I am not a propane rental expert so hopefully others can chime in.Is there a way for the tenant to use an excessive amount of propane and run the auto fill monthly cost very high??

That's how I raised in excess of $80 million in the last 13 years from limited partners.