Melissa LapinskiAlmost always available on the County Assessor's website (key word is ALMOST...some counties make it tough as Jon Holdman said).

Mitigating factors, this is a suburb where occupancy rates are high, rents are growing, and multiple innovation-based businesses are attracting young workers to the area.5) Are YOU investing in this deal?

@Katrina Kunzler this is a tough one!

It's going to be tough to get that $400 back.

The fact they are willing to pay $200 extra also indicates they have had a tough time renting other places, aka other landlords have told them no.I would lower the rent and find a good tenant before I did this, but that’s just me. 

The national courses are pretty tough to learn the local specifics in my opinion....and tax sales are very very local.Find someone local where you want to invest....check your local REIAs. 

In short the investments that are 'tough' to make the numbers work, will become much more investable to the degree they might no longer be available.

Buying 25% below FMV is tough in a market that has 5 times more demand than supply.

So if you could gc them yourself, you could force some equity on the new construction deals and the new construction ones might be a no brainer.The other question I'd have is whether you're getting deals on the pre-existing homes.Ultimately, its going to be real tough to scale either one if you're paying retail because if you're buying 250k homes and putting down 20 to 25%, you'll run out of cash real quick. 

At least if the workers who complete the work are licensed you can avoid this headache if caught because they can obtain the permits and complete the work they started.