At least the dude in Nigeria needing me to invest in his late wife's diamond mine makes a personal time commitment to talk to me. 

You have to keep at though to find the diamond in the rough.  

We got tired of the hype for the next best "popular" thing and started looking for a diamond in the rough solution. 

Most of it will be junk but you may find a diamond in the rough. the advantage of buying the leftover liens is you pay face value and you don't have to bid it up at the auction.There are some very detailed threads here on buying Baltimore City tax liens and buying from the leftover list.

Walker's Point might have some diamonds in the rough, as that is continuing, along with Bayview to be Milwaukees "up and coming area".

I'm tagging @Derek Diamond here too so he can read this as well.The short answer here is "yes", it is entirely possible to find lenders that only require 20% down...or even 15% down when purchasing a property.  

@Diamond DeVies-Ellis.3-2 & larger in decent areas (N.

As to strike off lists, I have had great luck finding diamonds in the rough ~ without ANY competition.  

At least the dude in Nigeria makes a personal investment in convincing me to help move his diamonds to the US.  

If you’re looking to stick a shovel in the ground and pull out diamonds you won’t find that anywhere.