It might be better to cut your losses now rather than gamble on cashflow, potential vacancy and declining values.

When you buy foreclosures you take a gamble on stuff like this.  

I suspect two things are happening here: 1) Hotels are lobbying hard to squeeze VR's in this time of crisis and 2) the Governor made a calculated gamble that STR's are many small fish who, individually, are unlikely to sue while Hotels would certainly do so. 

Up until this point you've come really close to what I'd call gambling three times. 

The strategy that works in these areas is fix and flip (add-a-level) in towns that either have a train line (NJT or LIRR) or border a town that has one.

When it comes to anything even bordering on edge of equity stripping, I wouldn't want to take any risk at all, especially one of a technicality type such as disaster declaration.

Hi @Myles Penner I will recommend that you speak with a cross border accountant who may be able to advise on the most tax-efficient structure.You can PM me if you need further information.

@Ryan Dossey  If you approach someone who has lived in a house for thirty years who heard of the RE crash and thinks their property is not worth much and you play on that to get a lower price then you might be on the border of theft, morally if not legally.

I'm not sure I can at the moment as I only have about 50k cash (soon to be ~130k, but I don't want to be gambling away inheritance).

You might think about doing a different color border instead.