I would also make sure I had a goal to fixing it -- reduce my liability and/or increase rents but not to fix things to perfect because that's the way I like 'em.A structural engineer is overkill depending on the severity. 

However, you can significantly reduce your cost of living employing different strategies. 6 years ago, When I first started, I had a duplex where I rented the 2nd unit and lived on the 1st.

You can also use the rents of the investment property (75% of common rent) as income to help reduce the DTI or obtain a higher loan amount. 

If so, make note of this and reduced the "# of days in service" for that property, then annualize using that lower # of service days.

The bank initial listing was $99k in Aug then reduced to $79K after discovering a foundation issue that cause the structure to slope at one side.

Can her participation, coupled with effective entity structuring, allow us to reduce our tax liabilities and/or claim our passive losses?

We appealed a bunch of multi's and got them all reduced a little. 

Taking the longest loan term will reduce your obligation, give you a better DTI ratio for future loans and you can make additional payments to reduce financing costs, even if the rate is higher.

I like to spread my houses in a city over several miles to reduce that risk.Nothing goes straight up, but it is hard to beat continual rental income.

Many are wrong about how high they have to jump and after jumping several times to a height they think is high enough and not scoring they start reducing the effort they put into the jump.