.- You can look into call kinds of economic growth and financial indicators as well to help narrow the list.- I've also heard of people choosing a market because the team they could put together in that market was the best team they found

I know this industry may be hit or miss, but if anyone can drop any kind of advice that would be great!

(Although it could be you picked a bad market or a bad property class and that’s the kind of tenant you’re going to get.

There is no way to do background checks since the best platforms for this investment strategy don't support such a thing.

I'm not sure what your specific market is but especially on a new build their is some kind of TIA budgeted by the ownership.wast that negotiated as part of your lease by your tenant rep? 

And the fact that your post had at least three votes for it when I posted this shows that there are lots of other people who would probably be losing in PA under those same assumptions that just happen to be FALSE in Pennsylvania.Pennsylvania has some rather complicated rules when it comes to tax sales; the particular type of sale that the OP purchased at is one that does not divest any liens; it simply changes the party that is the owner, with the new owner taking title subject to all liens and encumbrances of record.With tax sales, the buyer must be aware of all the local rules under which the tax sale is being conducted, because the rules vary all over the place.Now, what the OP seems to have failed to do in his research was to cross index the recordings at the county recorder; the "missed" mortgage would have showed up on a search by parcel number if that sort of cross check was done (and assuming all indexed documents at the recorder are properly indexed of course - I have seen mistakes made attaching a document to the wrong parcel).

Can you count that $4,600 as “rental income” or does it have to go under some kind of self employment?

Some kind of software?

Does that make anyone think, "If you're not bringing any capital to the table then you probably want to avoid this strategy or you probably want to go with this kind of investment"? 

@Scott Trench accountability check in?