One of the tricky things with a project like this is that banks are very leery of underwriting a mortgage on something that isn't a residence (I ran into this w

One of the tricky things with a project like this is that banks are very leery of underwriting a mortgage on something that isn't a residence (I ran into this when I briefly flirted with buying an old fire station). Usually the best you can do is a construction loan at a fairly high interest rate. But if you have California equity and are buying at Rust Belt prices (as in this case) you can just pay cash.