I often see investors obsess over tax advantages and tax strategies and lose sight of why they are making the underlying investment or whether the operational decisions are sound.

You also will not be able to see the house and no one should buy sight unseen without a history of doing it.If you are talking about Auction dot com or Xome or Hubzu, those come with a buyer's premium on top of the sale price between 5-10% and often have ghost bidders in the system so you will see it keep getting reset to hit a higher bottom.As a new(er) investor, auctions are where you go to lose money and take on excessive risk.

Some people will leave because you want to raise it $25 out of principle and the longer it’s empty the longer raising the rent was pointless.

We don’t want to let her get away with this again and it’s more about principle at this time.

I bought it sight unseen as I viewed it as a small development project, did my due diligence up front and didn’t really care about the state of the house.There were 5 offers on the property to which I ended up knowing a few of the other bidders.

In the event of default/non-performance on a CFD for vacant land in one of the hypothetical "foreclosure" states I mention above, does the land parcel have to go to auction, with bidding starting at the unpaid principle balance of the contract (plus late fees, legal fees, etc.)?

It's not just about the numbers – it's about creating win-win scenarios where both parties can sleep well at night.3 principles I've learned after 4 years in real estate investing:1) Transparency builds trust. 

I want to verify when calculating DTI, lenders will only look at the monthly principle and interest payments for each of the 5 mortgages and ignore the escrow portion (for taxes and insurance). 

It's the same principle you would practice with a mutual fund: it continues to grow (hopefully) and you pay a tithe from the prophets received at the time the profits are received.I am not strict about this by any means, for myself or others.. what other people give is not my business and I do not believe in people giving under compulsion.

I would argue that you can only save a finite amount of money when aggressively paying off the mortgage, but you have a much higher potential increase to your assets and wealth by taking that extra principle and reinvesting it into other investment instruments.