The house is 4 BR, 3 BA and is in great shape (built in the 50s, gut renovated in 2007).

I've had an alarm system put in, two new security/storm doors (old ones were missing), some new blinds, a couple of new light fixtures and I had most all of the plumbing gutted and replaced including a new hot water heater.  

I haven't seen this deal but my gut feel is that getting to $2.2 might be difficult.

Second house also in a rough neighborhood very nice home needs a lot of work great potential home owner is disabled and seems to want to sell but in my opinion he is asking for too much and doesn't realize how much work on the house will cost, he was asking for 8k house was 4 br 2 ba kitchen was completely gutted out needed to wire the house because he pulled all the wire, needed furnace and water heater and duct work.

Second house also in a rough neighborhood very nice home needs a lot of work great potential home owner is disabled and seems to want to sell but in my opinion he is asking for too much and doesn't realize how much work on the house will cost, he was asking for 8k house was 4 br 2 ba kitchen was completely gutted out needed to wire the house because he pulled all the wire, needed furnace and water heater and duct work.

P.S My husand gutted our first house.

If im going to try and hit that 525k value mark, im thinking i would have to gut out the whole house, and upgrade the whole entire house, that would be about 140k in rehab.

My instinctive response to your priorities are: Ignore the student loan debt.

The architecture firm for the project Im working with are backed logged 3 mos out (can't do that moving on) Anyone have a good architect/designer contact locally that can handle a renovation row/town home 1708sf complete gutted, with reasonable rates.

I think that's the best gut-check for if a RE investment is worthwhile.You could argue about the risk profile of each endeavor but you get the idea.