In my experience, when residents have unexpectedly high heating bills, they gripe about it, their ability to pay rent is reduced(leading to a higher eviction rate,) and they tend to leave the apartment at the end of their lease, dramatically increasing turnover.

Better to handle it yourself.

Personally, I would create an amortization table and figure out at what interest rates and amortization periods you can handle the debt service.

Do you not have any relatives, friends, or reliable handyman nearby that would either handle it or contact you? 

I have to hire labor, so in your experience, what might be the most direct/best way to handle this kind of renovation??

Honestly if it were me I could do something a little closer to home until I had a good handle on it.

I was looking at a house in Anoka and they are actually trying to reduce the number of rental units in their city. 

If you are not comfortable handling your side, either find a broker willing to guide you along the way, even if they take a higher percentage, or find a good buyers agent and use them instead of  getting your license until you're comfortable on your own as details matter and mistakes can be costly.    

You can then do your investigation and if you want to proceed try to get the seller to reduce the price based on your findings.

He's been handling all of our accounting needs for almost a decade now, as well as many other real estate agents/investors in town.