The property I am looking at has equity and only a purchase money loan (1st mortgage).I understand the basics, Wining the bid, gets me the deed subject to the existing loan. 

Most SMLLCs are basic but syndicates, funds and larger businesses have complexity

His advice was basically if you go into the city , know where you are going and know how to get out . 

Life can get ugly real fast if you just buy a property without a basic understanding of how this works.1.

So basically, they don't allow HELOCs on rental properties in Texas, thank you for the suggestion though!

Another thing to note is that the land bank has a ton of cheap property but they are not worth investing in even though it may look enticing because they can be much "Cheaper" but the ROI is not there unless your a heavy cash investor with a ton of experience basically building from almost nothing.

The basic tax strategies haven't changed that much, but there have been some changes to details.

The duplex itself is a disaster it is a 3/1 and 3/1.5 vandals got in when it was vacant and cut pipes and electrical basically would need to be gutted and probably over 100k in renovations.  

A few basic ideas that I think could help: 1. tax loss harvesting2.

well since banks basically dont do this kind of lending at all for 95% of folks.HML  PML or  money partners is the only way to do it .. short of using your own cash.