Does it make sense to know how vehicles work, how to value them, how to understand your market, what legal aspects apply to your operations? 

Sure, this vehicle will work, however you are suggesting that you will be improving the property before you exercise your purchase rights.

Just clean with bleach water and buy a chemical mildew/mold blocker which will help prevent it from coming back.  

I would like, however, to have a vehicle where I can invest something and get better returns than in the bank.

Place a "[address] Parking Only - Vehicles Towed at Owners Expense (a little more drastic obviously, and you'd have to look into the details on that one for sure).Best of luck with that!

Now I see the genius behind @Michael Japuncic's comments.I want to get back to the comments shared by @Don Konipol with reference to Nation-Wide Real Estate Investing and the emergence of Crowdfunding as an investment vehicle.

Same thing like modifying a vehicle: cheap, fast, reliable, pick two.

I think self-storage is a great investment vehicle, and there is a really good BP podcast on that here.I would talk to Michael Rogers about the specifics.

The question is also a little tricky to answer as for many of these vehicles, you may need to look at cash-on-cash, total return, and probably half a dozen other factors I'm not remembering at the moment.

There are a lot of possibilities using the 1031 vehicle.