We provide materials to our agents to hammer this mentality home, and we have processes to back them up.

My scoring criteria is clearly spelled out in writing and I use an objective score sheet to determine approval or denial.

The prior owner, a mentally-challenged man, had died in 2018 while in long term care. 

That is good enough to determine if further talking and negotiations are necessary.

BUT, if buying a new investment property you can use 75% of the appraiser determination of the new property.If on the tax return, you can use short term rental income OR long term income.

The courts do nothing to make sure you get paid, only determine who owes who. 

And I dedicate equal amounts of mental time and energy to either consideration, the appropriate amount, ZERO.

You can use the property tax allocations to determine the land value.

A good PM can also help you determine what types of properties are in demand, what neighborhoods to focus on, and maybe even cross-check any properties you find to see if they are good investments.

There have been some recent posts about investors that had their property burned down and insurance wouldn’t cover it because it was determined the batteries were not working in the smokes.