A few points that I considered when crafting this strategy:-I didn't want to turn off Instant Book because of the SEO hit on Airbnb.

Sometimes solutions that under normal circumstances would be considered sub-optimal, or even crazy, may in fact be your best option. 

I'm a Software Engineer at a Big Tech and the numbers/optimization aspect of REI is what got me really interested in it.

Do everything you can to learn and minimize that risk, but remember you don't have an endless amount of time to figure this stuff out and conditions are never going to be optimal.

SEO and computer programming can both be learned at software school with very flexible schedules.

That's why, most of the time, you can optimize your project's IRR by selling earlier than what you would expect because you can properly time your big pay-off date (i.e. your property sale date).

In my opinion, considering the condition and all the risk that comes along with a property built in 1910 - $500K would be my offer.There are deed restrictions that prevents expansion and optimal use of the yard.Rehab costs for a full gut rehab approximately $650K conservatively, assuming there are no structural issues.

Your time is WAY more valuable doing SEO for example.

How do you drive traffic to your IC site if you're not utilizing PPC or some sort of search engine optimization?

Also do you think its better to avoid mailers and stick with Digital marketing via SEO and PPC only?