The basic goals are:  1)  Cash flow/month to cover monthly bills; 2)  Profit to pay off personal debt.Once these Financial Goals are established, you can then "reverse engineer" your plan from these goals back to your current situation. 

He's a stand up guy and probably isn't covered up yet like most contractors. 

What representations did they make in writing, if any?

As long as the appropriate docs are in place with the lender (so you're fully aware of all the terms/conditions of the loan) and you have a verified exit strategy (refinance or sell at a price that would cover the debt), I would go with that option. 

OK I see in another thread your asking about lease options.. and probably sandwich lease options and your lawyer is sizing up your financial ability to execute on your contract when the person you lease to stops paying you which is highly probable.. so that's probably good advice unless you have deep pockets and can cover a mortgage or lease payment for the time it takes to evict have the money to rehab the house once the tenant trash's it and then lease it again.most who try these schemes do it because they lack capital and undercapitalized investors fail most every time.this is what the lawyer is thinking.. how to you get through a default.

This is the same result as if someone bids with enough sum to cover the money due to the bank, but not enough to cover my parents' lien.   

In order to increase NOI, you have to look at your potential purchase from two sides:I. income - can it be increased (via either rent increase, or other types of income - for instance, laundry or covered parking if there's none and it makes sense to add it) and/orII. expenses - can it be decreased.

The positive note here is I have enough income coming in from it to at least cover my fixed costs and have extra for anything that pops up if I were to have 3 vacant units until mid January to March/April. 

You need builders risk, a GC’s builders risk only covers Their work.

Do you have funds in place or available to cover this?