The neighbor is going to be selling house anyway. the reality is the your moms house is grandfathered in.. the only issue would be if it burnt down.. you would then have to rebuild based on the set backs as dictated in the zoning code.. so its really a non event for your mother.. 

Your goals could dictate otherwise.

There isn't enough going into it to make it look GREAT and the costs sort of dictate something "not too elaborate". 

Your working situation may dictate where you end up buying.

The law doesn't care.Due diligence dictates that your lender checks out your borrower (i.e. their collateral) since they might get to know one another more than they want at some time in the future.

Any number of things can happen with the property, area, or your life circumstances that dictates a sale at a non-optimal time.

Does your contract have a protocol to dictate what happens when rent is, say, 5 days past due?

As far as I'm concerned, that's money that the deal dictates I need to set aside and ideally will never touch again, so I just add it in to my up front cost.

So while my end-goal is be in a different (and hopefully more profitable) market, my experience level dictates that the smart move for me would be to start locally.As @Patrick Liska said, if it's a good deal, GO FOR IT.

Am I wrong in thinking that if a company withdraws money from my account, there better be some kind of trail dictating such?