During the safety inspection, they made sure that there was a window wide enough for someone to climb through and that the safety latch on the bars on the windows were in working order. 

The basement will be good a lot of nice storage now, I guess.On the plus side, it is in a great neighborhood and school district plus it already has all replacement windows.

Kitchen cabinets do not all close properly, some windows still didn't open well, they didn't hire a foundation crew to install piers, they simply used some cinder blocks & shims (with no receipts), and no main line plumbing was updated. 

As soon as you start working on the home board up the windows from the inside (especially the back of the home) and use double-keyed deadbolts on the locks.

BTW, the house I was thinking of when I wrote this post, I did go and look at this morning (outside only, peeking in windows) and had my agent put an offer on.

How can I tell if it is going to be cost efficient to get new windows installed.

All new laminate flooring, new paint, new roof, new light fixtures, newer windows nice big corner lot, will have new HVAC soon. $69,900.

So I was thinking of maybe just adding a bathroom, installing drywall, flooring and some windows and calling it a day.Is anyone familiar with instances where folks have leased similar spaces as storage/artist studios/workshops etc?

See if anything stands out, like broken windows, broken handrails, staircase etc, that may need attention.

Then you read up on how best to estimate the cost of that new kitchen, bath, flooring, windows, roof, landscaping etc....then you're calibrated.