With carpet, I usually go with one of the more expensive carpets instock at Lowes, and upgrade the pad.  

Buy anyways, she tried posting the property online for as low as $45,000, and even found a buyer, but the buyer did not have any any money and wasted a lot of her time. 

For a low-income senior, it will certainly be higher.

If it were a four-plex, you could try to qualify for FHA (or conventional) using the rental income and have a low down.  

Some are focused purely on networking, some on education and some on selling product or services.

I have a full time job that I love as a product design engineer. 

It is unfortunate that so many low income people have this house as their largest asset and have zero clue what's it worth and tend to make bad decisions when faced with their greatest financial challenge.

It does not matter to me one bit if they are working in this market or elsewhere in the country, I simply want to learn and be exposed to the highs and lows of the business. 

Assuming that his fico score its over 680, I would cash out via conventional loan. 203K its considered an FHA product, so he can not hold two FHA loans at this time if the last loan was expedited in the last 3 years.

I'm have a job that's higher paying than the one I will be going to, and my current DTI is low given I have a high-paying job, but my DTI will increase since my new job is lower paying.