And a lot of start-up companies are migrating to this city as well, because of the efficient costs of living, the OSU campus that has thousands of students graduating and looking for jobs locally, and the availability of land.

@Andy OkamotoOne cautionary note: if your idea of "cash flow" is $10K in net operating income, $120K before taxes in your pocket every year off your rental property, well, if it happens to you in 10 years, it will be a low-probability event with a lot of lucky breaks and eventually will likely ruin your life when you make a misstep because you assumed your lucky break was the norm.If you're serious about moving out here, at least look at the Pittsburgh area and its proximity to Carnegie Mellon (tech) and UPMC (health care).

I' afraid the cat pee will ruin the floors. 

She also put in thousands of dollars to make improvements which include a bathroom, and two more bedrooms.

This can cost you 10's or 100's of thousands in property value/sale price. 

I'm thinking of using a lawyer but I'm curious is I can save the few thousand dollars and do it myself.

I've worked exclusively with builders on for-sale subdivisions throughout Southern CA for the past ~20 years (thousands of new homes) and cannot think of a single time one of my builder-clients has retraded on price after a third-party inspector toured on behalf of a buyer.

It's weird stuff like how much the prorated taxes are - changes it by a thousand bucks or so. 

The problem to the solutions of having a window AC or portable on standby is that if your portfolio is large you will have to have $10s of thousands of dollars of ACs for "just in case" moments.

If you have a handle on the value of the house, can make an offer that protects you and adhere to the contingency deadlines like inspection and financing,  a buyer's agent does nothing but waste your time and cost you thousands.