The neighborhoods were lower end, AND every one of these houses was leased, several were Section 8, etc.This crash of 11 deals blindsided me.

Did the Inspector just blindside me or do others run into this?

We were originally intending to occupy for a short while then flip it. we did learn they are paying fair market value for rent and we purchased the house at about 40% of market value. the tenant began the text messaging with my wife. no messages have been hostile they are just a little scared because the previous owner never notified them about the foreclosure and we blind sided them. we don't even know if they have a lawyer at this point or if it was all talk.

This builds trust and then when you do find an actual deal, you won't be blindsiding them with a request.  

I was blindsided because I didn’t accept section 8 but figures they’ve been there for 4 months and the unit looked good.

etc.Are you comfortable with being blindsided by those potential issues?

my biggest concern here is how to be legit and legal and not be blindsided by any agency or paperwork.

I was blindsided by a guy parked along a curb who tried pulling out real fast.Of course no witnesses as it was on a small side street.

In fact, I told my broker last week, this is a distressed property without a distressed price tag.But you are exactly hitting on my two big reservations: 1) overvalued relative to age/condition and rent roll, and maintenance problems, 2) and this is probably a bad way to cut my teeth...too much for first time deal.It's just easy to get blindsided by the apparent, as-is cash flow.

@Jeff Dulla it is owned by our LLC, we originally purchased through private lending but had to refi out by 3 years and we were blindsided a bit by our mortgage terms and it unfortunately ate up all of our cash flow.