The reasons vary Could be any of the following;  don't want to live in the dark, power was cut off for non payment, starting a short term meth lab, house of Ill repute or whatever, use your imagination.

I don't see how you can have separate title for 2 houses on 1 lot.. unless it's a mobile or manufactured home

I am an agent as well though and last thing I need is that kind of reputation. 

To save my reputation, I ended up taking a HML on one of my properties. 

@Greg Becker - turnkey providers is also a good option to get your feet wet.Thats how I started by buying my 1st rental in KCMO and then built a team there to acquire a few more properties afterwardIf you go that route make sure to use a good/reputable vendor as there are many turnkey providers but very few selected ones are actually goodgood luck

However, Winsted does not share the school system of region 7 and it does have some negative reputations floating around.

The tenured brokers in the business do not want to damage their reputation by misrepresenting to another firm on what the commission split would be or what the seller would do.If it is a wholesaler or a fee taker middleman type thing and they have little to no experience that can be a recipe for disaster.

Reputations are made on how you deal with your tenants.

It is an entirely online business that has garnered a great reputation and a lot of my business comes from referrals and word of mouth.

Even if it was legal you run several risks.  1) You would permanently damage your reputation in an industry where reputation is vital to get deals.   2) You risk major tax implications related to large capital gains.  3) Comps are not solely based on on the units you want them to be based on.  4) Even if this hypothetical plan worked exactly as you laid out you would be extremely over leveraged and underwater on the other units as you pulled out falsely inflated equity.