Don't know how it would work in Austin, very different market from the cheap and steady market here. 

Multifamily is my focus and I've been trying for cheap single families (under 250k) as well.

Option A: live with family for free until we have new job(s) locked down, then move into real estate once we have a salary for a traditional mortgageOption B: rent a cheap apartment in GR to get our bearings in the city while looking for jobs, and learning more about the REI/rental marketplace by living thereOption C: explore creative funding options to speed up the purchase of our first investment property, which will help fund the purchase of our own homeOption D: look for a 2-unit to live in, fix, and rent before we purchase a larger home? 

PEX is the way to go, I am not a plumber by any stretch of the imagination, but pex is so easy to use, cheap, and easy to learn. 

@Brian Snell I think this is a great question about the lease purchase or lease option business.Lease purchase or lease option business planning is got nothing to do with wholesaling (e.g. buying the property as cheap as possible price or optioning the property at the cheapest possible price.)Lease purchase or lease option business planning has to do with positioning yourself as a problem solver.

Put curtains or cheap blinds to keep people from seeing in that it is vacant. 

You can't buy houses that cheap in the areas we work in currently though, market is up. 

We have a good ins broker here in town, he gets reasonable homeowner's ins for our owner fi houses, and the car ins he just got me was incredibly cheap. 

I doubt you'll get anyone to even HML (80/20 LTV) on a property that is selling its NOI that cheap unless it is explainable.

The $250K price you mentioned would be cheap for Downtown DC and would probably cash flow nicely.