In my experience, you can purchase the existing home and the encroachment is grandfathered in, meaning the vacant lot owner can't force you to move it.

I believe it will continue to be unattainable for most people entering the work force.

Its not worth the headache to force someone to stay who is just gonna not pay you anyways.

Everything in SEO should be natural and nothing should be forced.

Which give you opportunity to force some equity.

For my first investment deal, I wanted to learn how to manage a property that is still within reasonable distance, but far enough so that it will force me to automate and learn how to manage it remotely.

You as the buyer also have rights under fair lending and you should never be forced to use a builders lender. 90% of the time lenders drop the ball and end up not being able to close on time or their overlays cost the buyer the deal and in some cases earnest money.I would walk away from a deal that forces you to put $50K in earnest and use some generic lender who may not even be able to close the deal.

My goal would be to get two of these with 25% down on both and still have some leftover to update my current primary residence to build forced equity. 

Prefer light renovations/updates, and ability to force equity with opportunity to add ADU(s). 

My wife and I are MTR owners and operators that really only use MTR arbitrage when we are at capacity in the units we own, and we have potential residents who would otherwise be forced to stay at extended care motels or similar.