What I ended up doing was taking buckets of bleach water and "mopping" the walls and ceilings.Change the water frequently and go a bit heavy on the bleach.

In this scenario where the seller and the buyer have already been identified and the price worked out would you use an attorney or try to get a fixed price from an agent since at that point all the heavy lifting is done?

In that entity structure your LLC will give you that asset protection and the trust is the vehicle to transfer deed.  

If you want to be more pro-active - drive your vehicle to that vacancy -Talk to as many neighbors as you can - let them know that you are interested in that property (or others that they may be able to refer you to) some neighbors won't cooperate with you since they may think you are a bill collector.Get the tax ID of the ownershipGo to white pages - search for the ownersPut a notice on the door for the owner to call youCheck to see if it has housing code violationsLiens - see if you can buy the lien and foreclose (or take an option to buy the lien - forecloses on your option)Check to see if it is in Tax Sale - contract the tax sale purchaser to see if you can take assignment of their positionCheck to see if it is in foreclosureMake sure you look at the back of the houses - talk to the neighbor at the rear of the housesFind out if it has been listed - by whom and for how long - call the real estate agent (they are the ones who know how to contract the owner) ask the agent "are you still accepting offers on that property?"

It's definitely heavy with the younger crowd.

IT's heavy, doesn't break easily, and demo guys hate dealing with it.

Real Estate is an amazing vehicle to generate income and has created more millionaires than any other field.

Today, you need to target heavy rehab projects, listings about to expire, those that went from pending back to active, or those with high days on market. 

They were pulling people out of homes on kayaks, air boats, and Army vehicles. 

I'm noticing that not all the big investment corporations handle these types of investment vehicles.