@Charles Mitchell do you have a lot of money to throw behind this endeavor?

First thing is to throw away their repair estimate and come up with your own.  

I have the capital to throw 20 to 30 % as down payment. 

I don't just throw it on the MLS with crappy cell phone pictures and wait.

I manage a lot of student rentals so I have a different audience.

I agree with being civil about it but if they think they can take an inch, they'll take 10 miles.I especially love Nicole's strategy to always start eviction immediately but to also let them know in the notification that it can be undone if they pay up right away (because if they think they are definitely being evicted, sometimes they will just throw their hands up in the air, give up and not even try or they will get mad and wreck your place).

He suggests segmenting a certain audience within your market to study and focus on, whether it be an age group common occupations, certain style of homes or geographic location such as a part of town within your city/ larger market.

We've always considered investment properties as assets intended to throw off cash. 

No need to throw away that $4773 in closing costs.

These situations, if encountered typically become engineering and construction problems that are ultimately solved with the developer's money.You are encouraged to do a bit of due diligence before spending an inordinate amount of time on this (or any development project) by:- Determining the highest and best use you see for the property- Running a pro forma to understand the project's value (sales or capitalized rental income) to see if the project makes sense financially - creating a project schedule and pre-development budget-Using the above data to approach the school district to see if they will work with you based on an offer that you make to them that is informed by your due diligence and try to get the property under contract if you can come to terms with the district with a closing date you think you can meetYou may well discover that the school district would prefer or may even be bound to dispose of the property thru an RFP process, that is a "request for proposal" where you and anyone else can throw your hat in the ring to see who produces the most attractive (to the district) proposition.