Magistrates tend to have long memories and also tend to hold grudges against local incompetent landlords.So if he wakes up and talks to someone with any brains and experience, this won't go to court, but he'll start looking for another excuse to get rid of you, something much easier to argue in court.

I am okay with taking some risk so when saving like this I tend to invest the money in VOO within my taxable brokerage account so it has the change to grow, knowing it also has the change to go down in value. 

What resources do you use to do market analysis and what are the nuts and bolts of using those resources to actually narrow down a location?

So selling it to someone when you can't give them clean and insurable title can sometimes be an issue.At that price point, not so much. 8k properties tend to have a buyer pool that won't care as much that the title isn't insurable if they see the reason why is because it was bought at a tax sale. 

Small banks and credit unions focused on farm/agriculture tend to be the most aggressive with land/lot loans.

I wouldn't say that people in general like one type over another, but rather people in general cohorts (single, married - no kids, married - with kids, etc.) tend to gravitate towards certain types of properties based on their lifestyles.

There will be some customary fees that hit seller side, but this is may vary state by state.On both buy and sell, you will have things like wire fees, maybe underwriting fee, etc, but these tend to be minimal.Holding costs: HOA, if you have one.  

They tend to go out quickly and rarely look as good. 

During ownership, these tend to be more expensive to operate relative to other real estate and lastly, for the limited few who can weather the storm and can effectively operate these properties, there is still a need for refinances.

My wife and I tend to look for Commercial buildings with a residential component to them.