The buyer originally intended to use a hard money lender that could not get their third party appraisal done in time to close. 

Let me explain that better, imagine your rehab is $100k, you would need to do part of the rehab, maybe $10k, and then you can get the funds for those first $10k reimbursed so you can keep progressing with the rehab.Given your experience, I would recommend you start with a moderate or light rehab, mostly cosmetic work so that you can do it yourself and won't get your profit decreased by hiring third parties.

That being said, we focus on micro units (1-2 guests max) and have no problem having our units booked every weekend with scattered weekdays.The sad thing is we used to be at nearly 95% occupancy in 2017-2019 but once everyone started joining the party and our city started throwing up tons of hotels to keep up with tourism demad, we dropped to more like 65% occupancy.Keep your head up, man!

Then as you pick up momentum you can look into bringing on a third party to help grow. 

You have to use the services of an unrelated party called the qualified intermediary. 

Find 3rd party ways to verify the owner and employment as described. it would be very odd to have both an employer and landlord in two different states thousands of miles away that share an area code with the perspective tenant that is not in the market the home market of the PM or the employer.

However, it is the third factor—whether investor business had actually commenced—that is determinative here.In investor’s business outline, dated May 10, 2004, he indicated that he was starting Value Property Investments “for the purpose of buying, remodeling and renting property.”

The mortgages should be extinguished by by the tax sale as all interested parties are to be notified prior to tax sale.

Look at the bottom third of this page: https://vsb.org/soyoure18/groups/SoYouRe18/landlord_tenant.a...2.

if a brand new investor is working with a private money lender, it's almost like one party is taking advantage of the other (not saying it's intentional)