each state is different however CA OR WA were VERY proactive and early adopters of the crimes against those losing homes by wholesalers ( with bad intent).. ergo the laws.what you ran into is FEDERAL law if you buy a courthouse steps with a tenant in place that has a legit lease and they pay on time you have to honor the lease you may not have known that when you bid.when you buy sheriffs sales there is no equity skimming laws.. perfectly legal and acceptable to buy at court house steps..

So I skimmed a lot of the responses and I'll assume the OP was intending to ask a valid, debate-starting question.My original intention was to start in the short-term areas of wholesaling and flipping.

Ironically, I hated real estate and couldn't wait until I was 13 so I could go work at my grandparents' dairy farm, where I mowed hay, fed calves and milked cows all summer.

@Matthew Olszak Maybe you're new but it's common practice among agents to start by lying that they have a buyer, then take the listing at a price they know the house won't sell for to milk it for buyer and seller leads, all the while telling the seller a sob story about how "the market has turned" or "things are just slow right now" and they need to lower the price.

Reminds you of the saying about cows and milk...

Go the the city library and check out every book on real estate investing...take them all home...and just skim one.If you don't catch the real estate investing "bug"...and devour all of them in 2 days...forgot about real estate investing.

Sorry, you're fine I skimmed again and thought you were` saying working with them, but you meant later I see. :)

If its a lot lower that may mean the seller has been milking the  property and you will have a lot of work to do. 

Sometimes you will see evidence of people trying to paint or skim coat over the wall to hide it but the skim coat or paint won't stick. 

Lol TRADITONAL. in the 80's "traditional" was 20%, 90's was your 6-8%, and here we are at 4% holding steady,.Worth mentioning that now is still a great time to cash-out and milk it for what you can...