You can learn more on BP and by attending and observing tax sales locally, as well as contacting the tax offices.Dallas is a hard sale to crack, as they conduct multiple sales at one location at a time.

At high school, I used to be an intern our family owned company (government contractor that builds roads and bridges, from the above statement), i had a vast experience since i had the flexibility to enter each department per year, 3 months of observation, 3 months of side by side working with the dept head, then 5 months running it and another month turning it back to the original head.

Note:  I'm learning the nuisances of the sellers here and an interesting thing that I've observed is that there are many cases where a property may be for sale and is only listed on the MLS.  

If it's an honest mistake I tend to agree with others, let that be a lesson for both you and the tenant - you to inspect the property more frequently, him to be more aware and observant as well as communicating to you on issues large and small and leave it to you to make the determination of the issue needs immediate attention.

Therefore such advice can only be general, and we must keep in mind that there could be, in fact probably are, important observations that might change the assessment of an individual situation as well as the advice on steps to take, also its important to get it documented by a mold professional and AIHA accredited lab, with a proper chain of custody.

I agree with your observation, it does make sense to buy existing product and improve it than build new when houses sell below replacement cost, and to build when the reverse is true.

More importantly, it will also prevent you from approving each flip.With the shortage of good deals, my observation is that many rehabbers are taking some unnecessary (i.e. dangerous) risks.

If a tenant reports a smell, that triggers an observation.  

Even a casual observer could have determined that we had always paid every bill on time our entire lives and that this was just a mistake by the hospital, but American Express wasn't that smart.

Just an observation, I am very glad that Texas doesn't have Nebraska's detailed sales recording rules nor Colorado's water restrictions (discussed in another forum thread) as that would be even more things to worry about...