I drove past a condemned house, the roof is collapsing.

I'm really excited to be here and looking toward a great future in real estate.   2 two family homes fell in my lap back in 2004 and things were going relatively well until the collapse.  

Not sure how since there was a hole in the roof of one of the upper units and a tarp of 4+ months catching rainwater, tenant heating a unit with their gas stove due to lack of heat, foundation about to cave on one side, (Duluth's steep hills could actually collapse the house on cave in) rotting tree trunk holding the house up in the center with 3-4 layers of 2x4 shim board etc etc.  

Consider the situation in which the owner of an investment property leases it to a tenant who decides to throw a big party, during which one of the tenant's guests falls over a balcony (this happened a few years back in Chicago when a deck collapsed).

There are markets that have as yet recovered from the collapse of real estate however a market such as mine,( resort, high 2nd & 3rd homes), never fell off more than 5-8%.

Those are cases where the assessed value is well below the true value.Other risks are fire, building collapse or demolition (that is a real risk in Baltimore) bankruptcy, IRS liens, condition of the property, the hidden costs and not knowing the rules.

As for me personally any investment having to do with the dollar is a risk because I believe an eventual collapse is imenent so I mostly focus and buy and flip and allocate a certain percentage into gold.

Some of the time however they will have a guy not put on an angle stop back on correctly during a rehab and leave for Disneyland*** so that you cannot reach them when your downstairs tenant calls you in a panic at 11PM on a Sunday night right after the ceiling collapsed in a big waterfall. 

The first thing I would have suggested is that you work with an agent who has experience with HUD, but right now it seems like that ship has sailed.As other posters have mentioned HUD will not fix things and this has been my experience with them as well.I had an owner occupant HUD buyer buy a house with a collapsed sewer line and HUD wouldn't budge.

And I think I am not... each property is a different basket to me... even if the housing market collapses again, that will mean more people need to rent from me!