I had a good friend who was trying to fund a gold mine purchase with private in esters and when the deal went bad and the investor lost the money the courts said he was selling securities without a license and some other stuff and sentenced him to 14 months in federal prison I would really like to avoid that.

There are two other issues, at minimum: 1) Proceeds going to a person in jail or prison.

@Girard Curry, I am a "buy and hold" guy so i am defiantly not a subject expert on this, but i can easily imagine that some of those "investors" who are contacting me about my rentals from CL are going to end up in prison, thanks to the new Dodd/Frank guidelines that became the law as of 2014.IMHO, a great example of this would be that some of these folks are still offering lease option with rent credit, with "in house closing" and that part is widely known now that sort of a behaviors could land you prison not just here in MD but in all states of the good old U.S. of A.ps.

People in my parts are notorious for spending more than they earn and quickly needing to oust themselves of automobiles/housing. and then the same people show up a month later with a shredded credit score needing a place to stay, thus presenting themselves as a prime rental candidate.

Most people think they just disappear or go back to prison.

I do NOT want to go to prison.4. how do I create a buyers list without anything to sell?

One word of caution on the condo- condo fees notoriously make condo buys not worth it for investors.

Last month they had Judge Pianka, nationally notorious of the Cleveland Housing Court, as keynote speaker.

The management companies are notorious for finding ways to separate owners form their reserves and operating accounts.Good luck.

If the bank has foreclosed there should be a foreclosure deed filed but they are notoriously bad at filling them until they need them ( When they are selling as an REO ), so they may own it and not have a record, but the banks don't usually want the property to be taken for taxes so who ever is paying the tax bill will most likely be the owner.