There are many areas that have seen a bubble effect for devaluation.

If you're invested in the one town/state/district, you always run the risk of your entire portfolio devaluations almost overnight if and when things go south.

You need to be familiar with insurance, estate matters, bankruptcy, business and to some extent criminal law, you need to know compliance issues to ensure you aren't buying past mistakes that can devalue or invalidate the note.

Closely held C-Corps are a pain tax wise, you'll devalue the corp disposing of assets and have the issues Steve spoke of.

I'm wondering if this is the reason they're trying to devalue the house on paper, but won't actually sell it for the amount they state it's worth.

If they are really broke you will get a judgment eventually on them but not collect anything and they might get angry and damage the property and devalue it before you get them out.

This is definitely a contriaian view where everyone thinks that the FED will print for forever and devalue the dollar 50%, rates will stay low forever, and gold is going to $5000/ounce.

Their play would be to make an offer, if the owner doesn't sell they will more than likely go back to thee city.There are so many ways to put an owner in a vise and crank it down on them, shut the place down, red tag it, devalue it and you might get another offer, or the city will take it as a public benefit for the tax base and sell it for less than you could buy it for to McDs.

Also, many states have enacted laws against puppy mills.In addition, you have already allowed them to turn their home into a car repair shop and storage area, devaluing the neighborhood, so now you think you should encourage barking dogs too?

Make sure you price in the former as it makes this property MUCH less appealing.You can get by with much lower maintenance costs, but then you devalue your building over time, if it's in good shape now, you had better keep it that way or you won't have much money on the table when you go to sell it.