Not much equity at this point but it's cash flow positive so far with very little deferred maintenance.

As a result, some year-end tax planning must be deferred and executed ”at the eleventh hour” only after Congress passes, and the President signs, what will likely result in a stopgap, temporary compromise yet again for 2017.

As far as the city is concerned ask:What contractors can pull their own permits (called deferred submittals) electrical, mechanical, plumbing?

This would allow you to defer the taxes on the sale of your personal residence too.

If i get even $1200 per month, my calculations say i should hit that targetThe property has been owned by an investor for years and has a lot of deferred maintenance.

You can use a self-directed IRA, where the property could be held in a tax free (Roth) or tax deferred(Traditional, SEP, Simple) environment.

While this is typically reserved for more advanced investors, you could look into doing a 1031 exchange if your gain exceed $500k to defer the rest of the tax. 1031 exchanges have a fast timeline so they can be very tricky, but if you were able to line up a home purchase and an investment purchase simultaneously (house hacking a multiplex, for example) then you could defer all your gains on it.You would have to hire a good real estate attorney and CPA to get it done, so the closing/transaction cost would be higher, but that is offset by paying no immediate taxes if the gain is high enough.It also might be a waste of your time depending on your income bracket, if it is low as you are saying you may be.

My thought is perhaps we can do a deferred down payment for 18-24 months, 18 months at 5% or 24 months at 6.5% interest (or somewhere thereabouts), re-position the property, refinance the property after it is performing and either cash out enough for some additional liquidity in the event of another purchase or just let the cash sit in the property.

Seller wants to quickly sell their home  and is willing to take 85k today rather than pay 6% in real estate  commission ($7,350), buyer closing cost ($5,000)  and another $3,500 dollars, they don't have,  to fix the Deferred repairs  that they haven't gotten around to but swore they would when they purchased. 

@Andrew MediciGreater Pittsburgh is literally bursting at the seams with small, low-value MF properties like this that have enormous deferred maintenance problems but were built solid enough back in the day to still be highly viable properties once you address those problems.