I can normally deal with issues but this one has me perplexed.Any suggestions? 

Whether or not, the demand for what you are doing must be high, city legality law, and the normality of a new structure going to be typical in that area? 

You normally buy at a significant discount because of the condition of the property. 

Susan - The short answer is normally the liens are wiped out by the tax sale, and subsequent quiet title lawsuit. 

Of course in many price ranges, 3-5K is within the normal range of what "Market Value" might be.  

This looks to be on the higher end from what I’ve see but pretty normal if you sell your house with any agent.Could be less if the value is a lot of say 500k-1M

If he expects a month worth as a fee then it is $1105 more than what he would normally get.  7.5% would be $1705.50 and he would have gained almost $1300 from my ignorance... hahaWhere is this 15% come from? 

You a gambling man?

We do: written offer with EMD (normally $500 - $1000) > signed acceptance (creating a binding contract) > due diligence > signed P&S with second (generally much larger) deposit > underwriting > closing.I'm told that we could technically close right from the written offer without ever executing a P&S.  

.$10,000,000 per month.If not the in laws and normal tenants i would go with fair market value for the same size apartment in the area.