Luckily, while I don't quite qualify as an accredited investor at this point, I have a great resume with no red flags as a sophisticated investor and am confident I can find the right sponsor and foster that relationship as needed when the right opportunity presents itself. 

I'd be willing to bet that the verbiage of what constitutes a closet might even say something along the lines of "being built of similar materials to the remaining structure" (i.e. drywall, wood studs, etc).

Local and regional banks are your best bet for a project like this.

Nagle I actually never thought of investing in Northern Iowa, and I bet it is beautiful!

@Kera Takacs my standard advice on this is that sooner or later you will have to do an eviction, so your best bet is to contact the attorney you would use for that eviction and pay them to either review your proposed lease or provide you with their recommended lease.Since they are the ones who will have to defend the lease in court, should it ever come to that, I think they're the ideal ones to review or provide the lease in the first place.

I bet he hasn't ran so fast since he was a kid. 

Best bet at this point is to hang onto it for a couple years to meet the sec 121 tests and then sell.

It's risky investing in an area that you're betting on improvement.

I'd be willing to bet a large sum of money that when you do drop the price, one of the 4 buyers that already looked at it will be the one to buy it. 

Putting that money in a Mexican CD would be doubling down on that bet.