We spent a few month making it very modern and attractive - moved W/D upstairs, new appliances, removed walls, refinished hardwoods, granite, new cabinets etc.  

As far as the stock market goes your money is at significantly more risk than a savings account and it is very volatile in the short term however over long term (10+ years) low cost index funds have proved themselves reliable, unfortunately this isn't a feasible time frame if you are saving for a down payment in most cases.

So when you had these hot beds of real estate speculation and borrowers could walk with the only thing they lose is FICO score and in many cases they put nothing down.. well they just walked.. and it became like chasing a falling knife it just got bad and kept getting worse.on the investor side.. you had thousands of investors in short term notes that could not get refinanced.. and probably in your line of work syndicators and other institutional investors who were stuck and could not refi and the lenders chose to foreclose.. especially if lets say Rialto bought your little bank that went under.. they were brutal on chasing he security .

But my definite short(ish) term goal is to buy this home within 8 years.

Having lived in the house for a very short time, I have gotten to know the property and what it needs done as far as preventative maintenance (luckily not much at all).Where I am stumped is my gutters.

On short notice, this costs us $240...I know, I know...smh.

A real quick way to find out what those advantages are...is invest OOS and you will likely learn some good ones in short order.  

The short version of how we ended up here is we bought a house to fix up while we lived in it.

The price point at which you would be able to afford these properties means that average rent would be roughly 5-600 per unit, which attracts low quality tenants, and means that neglected repairs and capex items can quickly eat into any profits that you may think you are getting. 

These deals are often attractive because you can close quickly, do not have to bother with the headaches of a traditional bank, and can structure the note differently (e.g. interest up front, balloon payments, etc..).