Also, how does one assess whether or not one can turn a profit after paying principal/interest, insurance, and taxes each month?

They can't assess all the subjective data like overall layout, view from the living room window, the dogs next door that bark all day, the width of doorways, size of individual rooms, quality of kitchen cabinets and appliances, etc.The best thing to do is study your market regularly.

There has been a squatter living in it for about 3 years, that refuses access to anyone that I have sent out there to assess the property.Safeguard personnel stopped communication with me last year. 

So depending on how much you pay for it, you can assess your cashflow.

Still assessing if it was the property itself or the property class.

He added on to his garage and did a lot more than I'm going to do, and his developer fee (then only school district assessment) not counting building/planning fees was $2,100. 

Around year 7 or 8, ideally year 10, re-assess your equity and maturation of those debt notes and re-adjust how you invest to suit your needs. 

Novice investor here. Would anyone have a good fix and flip spreadsheet they could point me to?

As firefighters persist in battling the blazes, many residents are left assessing their financial and emotional losses.

Hre are the key things to knowWhat you are bidding on - often oddball properties that are hard to identify and have little value are auctioned offThe true as is value of the property, The tax assessment can be way higher or way lower than the true as is valueThe local laws and how they affet your total costs and returns