Spreadsheets are so nice for this.Do you have a HOA (Home Owners Association)?

Straw-man deals (wholesaling) acting as a facilitator, getting in and out of some transaction that is unorthodox or not common and facilitating, what can easily be seen as financing, a matter that has many avenues to investigate to uncover some aspect that could open the door to claims of fraud.

We ultimately ended up tearing down the addition because we kept uncovering new problems with it:We couldn't bypass the city and go straight to the county to get the square footage accounted, and the city of Seatac has a reputation for being unreasonable.  

The deal was then handed off to title and escrow which uncovered several outstanding liens on the property as well as two mortgages, none of which was disclosed by the seller when signing the purchase agreement even though my agent specifically asked him.  

During the rehab, they uncovered some early American artifacts that fetched quite a lot of money at auction.

The people here are so nice and willing to share their enormous knowledge.

So if you buy a place that is rent ready and you don't make improvements that will drive the appraisal up then you will end up sinking 20-25% of your money into the property and not maximizing your cash out refi.I have rentals that I get a 12% return on in nice areas and I have rentals that I get 20-25% return on in not so nice areas, I have better tenants and less headache with the nicer area but my bottom line looks better with the bad area.Hope this helps! 

If you uncover any issues, check with the source and find out what options are available to get resolution if you purchase the property.

While peeling up stick-on tiles stuck to the concrete slab on an addition to my recently purchased house, I uncovered a 2' square hole peeking out from a wall.

With a house that old, you could easily uncover issues that cost 100k to repair, like failing structure, foundation, electrical (knob and tube was the standard when the house was originally wired -- this place is so old it predates electricity), heating/cooling (old boiler, furnace, coal chute even?)