The warranty company would only give you a limited selection of cheap options even if they ended up replacing it for you..

You could buy these assets if you had cash and wait a yr or two to reposition.Now you have to be very selective when looking at deals and choose your niche and focus.  

Now you take Jackson which is 70% or more AA and average credit score of 600 state wide.. and you force banks to make loans to those in the communities and you had a bunch of folks that probably did not know enough about finance's and homeownership and had a history of not being able to manage their personal finances buying homes when they should not have in the first place. 

Just remember to know your selected market to deal in and the locations you choose within it.  

@Rod Hanks Most actionable post on this thread.I created the PETIO model as a format to quickly assess a wide variety of situations:Property - Estimate of as-is and after-repaired valueEquity - estimated balances of all mortgages, cost(s) to cure, payments/mo.

I would think that if they had true deals they would only need to make a phone call to a select few and the deal would be gone within minutes. 

This link tells you the basic requirements needed and you can select a course from a school you're interested in to see if it meets the requirements to sit for the test.http://www.dre.ca.gov/Examinees/RequirementsSales....

They seem to have a good selection of moderately priced, modern looking handles and knobs.

Will then select my faucets and light fixtures.

While I understand your thought of using all cash to buy a rental property, my own personal preference would be to "go wide" with 4+ newer single family rentals, and then collect rents on all four, using the funds to pay down one mortgage at a time in a concentrated debt snowball.