After I moved out, he claimed to to his insurance company that I had damaged the property and they cut him a fat check, then tried to abrogate against me.

They will say yes.Watch how fat your list grows.

I offer up the help only because I'm new to real estate investing and want to help where I can in the hope other will help me where needed.  

And sometimes if there is big equity and no junior loan its best for them to let it go to foreclosure because we are in such a Heated court house steps buying environment that the owner could get a big fat overage check seen those in the hundreds of thousands... 

I'm on a quest to learn as much as I can in 2017 and buy my first deal by end of year or early 2018 in the ATL area.I'm running analysis on 2-3 deals a day and I keep getting stuck on utilities.

I would love to talk with anyone investing in Detroit and try to help out any way I can in exchange.  

I've been studying as much as I can in my very limited free time( I work 18hrs/day on average).

I will definitely try to learn as much as I can. In

Meet and get to know everyone you can in your area, It will be intimidating but well worth it.  

I highly recommend learning as much as you can in this early stage: read various books, listen to the BiggerPockets website, check out the webinars, etc.