In some areas you can have houses selling for 500k+ just two streets away from board-ups and broken glass. 

Not only did I do my due diligence on this property before I bought it, the tax deed auctions in Michigan ensure there is no mortgage or other major encumbrances, with the exception of minor code violations like tall grass or past HOA fees.

'Key mandates of the law include: Condominiums three or more stories tall must have a “milestone inspection” of structural integrity at 30 years of age, and every 10 years thereafter.

I do recommend very strongly before you go buying the same list everyone else is buying and worry too much about dialers and the such that you take the very first right of passage that I believe every investor should take.DRIVING FOR DOLLARS.This is also probably one of the lowest cost of entry while also being one of the surest paths to success.Simply start going through the B and C areas of your town and start looking for signs of distress and abandonment.Look for the tall grass, homes that you can see right through at the windows, homes with no curtains and no furniture inside, damaged mailboxes, mailboxes with no doors, missing mailboxes, cars with expired tags which have obviously not been moved in quite awhile, etc…Once you have found 20-50 addresses, look them up on the county’s property appraiser.Here is a link to a site that will pull up the property appraiser, clerk of courts and tax collector for every county in the country. 

If you search the forums for this topic using the magnifying glass feature in top right corner of your screen on BiggerPockets you will find a lot of discussion on "Quit Claim" "Buying through LLC" etc....This post does not create a CPA-client relationship.

Before I was so sick I couldn't work anymore I went to my rental unit with the left of my savings to hopefully fix it to maximize my appraisal for a refi.While at the house I was 2 weeks into fixing the siding from a tree and patching a glass door that was removed before i bought it.

The current layout of the building is 2 floors, with 2 units on each floor, and there is an unfinished basement (supposedly about 7 ft. tall).

Hello Bigger Pockets community,I find myself in the situation of rehabbing a property, specifically dealing with a second-level deck that has an exterior glass sliding door.

Other renovations included new roof, appliances, AC, flooring, lighting, paint, conversion of 100 amp glass fuse panel to 200 amp thermal CBs and the elimination of gas lines. 

Kitchen remodel with wood cabinets, granite, new dimming LED down-lighting, new breakfast island with glass doors, and new tile.New tile in two bedrooms and wood plank style tile in the family room.Fresh paint inside and out.