Homestyle Rehab loan

[Bruce Ng]

Hi All, 

I'm looking at a duplex in Los Angeles county. It is definitely very old and I am looking at how to do effectively do a live-in rehab. I was recommended a Homestyle rehab loan by my lender but I've never done one of these before. 
There has definitely been a lot of deferred maintenance but it MIGHT be enough to get through acquiring the property and then I can tear a bunch of it out later. I'm thinking I just need to secure the property, get any big ticket structural things fixed and then I am planning on getting the rest taken care of with my own funding. 

As of now, it appears the main thing is an active roof leak (it was leaking when it was raining at showing) 
and there is a wall near that leak that appears to be a bit sunken so we think there's been some settling under the house in the crawlspace.

We have not seen the upstairs unit with a tenant in place.

We also want to move the front door to a different wall so that we can add another bedroom and bathroom but I was thinking we can do that later so that we don't over complicate the initial loan. 

Regarding the offer, how long would you recommend for loan/inspection type contingencies? is 21 days too fast? especially with the holiday season coming? My realtor said we can always ask to extend if we need it. 

Thanks in advance!