I'd definetly buy a fixer again, but I enjoy this stuff. We had a fews ups and downs at the beginnings, lots of downs.
The front door wasn't closing right. Further investigation revealed that water had been allowed to go under the sill and had destroyed the joists under the sill. I lifted up the rug by the front door and could see the earth beneath the house. Ripped up the carpet, sistered the old joists with new 2x12's, and put in new ply. Reinstalled the door frame.
The A/C unit had a dead compressor, and it was probably 30years old, so fixing it was out of the question. We were moving into the house in July in Alabama, so it's HOT real hot. Solution: We got a 5 ton unit off ebay for $500.
I've discovered all sorts of creative wiring issues that I had to iron out because I didn't want the house to burn down.
The house was basically abandoned for 2 years, the water was off, so the o-rings in the faucets dried up and most of them leaked.
A leak behind the chimney that had obviously been going on for a while, so there was some hidden wood/sheetrock damage.
And you wouldn't believe the ungodly paint and wall-paper that was in this place. There were other issues also, but we've worked through most of them, things have been coming together and it's really shaping up and we love it. We went from ~1700sf to ~3100sf and did not have to get second jobs.
If you can see pasts the ugly paint, untrimmed hedges, overgrown lawn, etc.. you can find some good values for your time/money.