Court records, code violations (especially when the code violation indicates if the house is vacant or not), and crime reports can identify good leads.  

@Justin Tortorich Its worse than your brief summary indicates, and the city appears to be enforcing it.  

Special assessments for something like this is an indication of poor money management.

For instance, Closing fee will be around $1,200Lender's Title will be around $1,000 (or less)Recording fees will be around $140 - Cant say if you will have to pay transfer tax to the City because you have not indicated which suburb the property is in. 

There is no PMI when you put 20% down so that indicates that you don't have a good understanding of the financing and what the lender is quoting.

The attorney indicated there are foundation issues which are preventing them from listing it yet.Background - I am a general contractor and realtor.

For example, even a motivated seller is likely to tell you they "aren't in a hurry", "don't really need to sell", or "only want to know what you might offer", etc, but if they also tell you "it needs a lot of work", that's an indicator to me that I want to get out there and see the property, and we have a good chance of doing the deal. 

Hello Taylor Vick The best indicators of value should be the sales from the subject's project.

Its what type of assets, their PP, and market where purchased as TK investments which will indicate the quality of service the TK provider can provide.For example, you are in Redwood City CA.

Portfolio loan terms, as @Andrew Postell indicated, have much more robust rules that you may or may-not be too keen on.