Buy this house or not?
The house has some charring on the wood in the attic one one side of the duplex from a fire from before the current owner owned the property. There is no knob and tube wiring anymore and the duplex passed safety inspection from the city's rental inspection unit. That said, I asked for 30K not only for sprucing up the duplexes but also as a discount for the charring that I will have to factor in when I go to sell the place. They offered 20K instead of 30K. The house is in a not so great area too but...it did go up 20% last year. NOTE: the charring was from before the current owner bought it.
Due to lack of options out there I'm tempted to go for it. I plan on holding for a few years anyways before selling and moving out of state.