It also depends on how much money you have and how you use it.

If she's been living there during the foreclosure and not paying rent, then she what did she do with the money she would have used to pay rent? 

Slowly and surely, you will make a lot money.

put another way:-Go on Zillow and buy a random property in Detroit: fail, lose money, give up on real estate investing.

The deal has to make sense and you really need to know the comps to make sure your investment is going to actually make money.

It helps you understand the areas where you want to invest, your rehab cost and where you money is going.

But if I sell it and put that money in the stock market and earn let’s say 8% I would make $40,000 on the same money.  

There is almost no scenario where a condo would ever positive cash flow while servicing debt, and very little positive cash flow with no debt.If your budget only allows for a condo, find a better place to put your money to work.   

The only thing we can think of is he deals with a lot of international trade and money and maybe it’s OFAC we just get a scripted message every time we talk to someone so we got lawyers involved. 

But you have the option to just pay the monthly payment up to maturity in case something goes wrong or if you decide you can use that money better to just build another property instead of paying it off.