My wife and I were driving around Claremont in Southern California and noticed a vacant home with notices plastered all over the front windows. looking through the windows revealed an empty house with lots a work to do.What is the best way for us to find out who the owner is, what the current numbers are, and subsequently try to make an offer on the house?

Subsequent posts identified Fuquay and Cary.

Since I will be doing this more with other investors that I have pre-relationship with, would it make sense to set up a bigger fund with first close being $450k, and subsequent closes to be $1M plus.

If you're willing to go after value-add deals, you could do a bit better and maybe even get your capital back after a few years to do subsequent deals.If you want something truly passive, you can consider investing in syndications.

Once the auth is in place for $10k, the lender can still capture that amount regardless of any subsequent changes to the account, including a credit line decrease, so long as the auth is still active.

Over the past year, I have worked with @Sean Richway on several deals and have been satisfied with his attractive terms and subsequent loans.

That deed isn't valid until it's delivered to you, and you're only secured as against the land bank's subsequent conveyance when the title company records. 

Another property I showed and almost sold had a murder-suicide from the late 1970s but then another subsequent suicide in the basement recently.

You would sell one or more properties (“relinquished property”) and subsequently build or make improvements on land that you already own (“replacement property”).

It would make sense to use an Insurance Company that is Mutual, Participative and Non-Direct Recognition ( I would highly recommend one company) to maximize the performance of the cash value and subsequent use as collateral for any purpose, keep in mind, we are talking about Whole Life, Whole Life DOES NOT HAVE SURRENDER PERIOD, VUL or IUL does and that is another story.Also I personally don't believe in the "buy term and forget the rest" strategy, term can be very useful but not as a stand alone solution.