Also a little clarity on why and how much the son would stay while he is not traveling.

Brown your not letting the news of the hurricane stop you from traveling?

There isn't a hard and fast answer, but beware if you are one that is the habit of flipping property.  

The 7 Essential Habits of Highly Effective People has been very inspirational for me.

I'd like to go an speak with the inspector to see what they would accept, but I'm out of town and I travel every week and it's realistically extremely difficult for me to do this.  

Those kinds of guys are traveling for work and staying in a motel. 

As a general principle, and to be verified at the state level, the landlord is legally responsible for habitability at all times.

Willing to travel to different states if the contract is right.

Either you are an owner or have an ownership interest or you are a manager.As Dave mentioned, your income is probably thin on the deal, so just atking a management position and writing off the 40 mile round trip and your office supplies will probably keep you from a tax liability...I would think...gues it depends how often you travel to that unit!

If it is a smaller law firm, they will usually hire the bidding to a local attorney; think about the time spent travelling back and forth, paying for parking, sitting at the sale for an hour or more - this all costs money, so paying somebody else to do this (who will also be doing this for many other law firms) makes lots of sense.As to question #2: The state laws require that this be handled in a public auction, so that is why it happens in the way you observed.