The local zoning attorney who you see on a lot of cases online for the government website or in the newspaper generally knows the odds of success and how the local body sees things.

For purposes of the home mortgage interest deduction and for the §121 capital gain exclusion, the IRS does treat the contract for sale as if you received title on the date you entered the contract.  

We have a lot of brokers that work exclusively with multi-family.

I found a newspaper with a breaking front cover story- death of Kennedy

Hi Gem have you visited AZREIA as that is a great place to network and find active investors to partner with and hard money lenders outside of BP community - let me know once you are ready for off market exclusive deals as I specialize in city violation , probate and fire damage deals 

Have fun - don't take yourself too seriouslylearn the pleasures of COLD CALLING sellersread financial newspapers - look for auctions - law suits -failure to pay taxes notices and business opportunitiesSearch tax sales - attend tax auctions - read probate adssit in court - listen to cases - find motivated sellerscreate a Fiduciary Buyers Broker agreement with smart agents - pay them for non-listed real estate.don't waste your time with non-responsive agents - brokers - lenders or sellersbe demanding - get answers - don't be passive - at our age (I am 75) we don't have time to waste!

Do exclusion work to keep them at bay.3.

Even if you go 2% deductible it's 6K.Add to that most policies now have exclusions. 

Newspaper?

@James Marshall,Providing the property is selling at a profit after just 4 years of ownership, resetting the tax basis a bit lower is unlikely to exceed the $250K §121 exclusion.