Sometimes, the address describes a house, but the auctioned parcel is for basically half of the address which is split into two separate lots (one with a house and the other without one). 

In the meantime, we may also want to renovate our current home to increase its overall and/or rental value.The plan is to scale our real estate investment portfolio pretty aggressively after our next purchase.

I dont even read them.. it comes down to condition of house and price  full stop.. if your market is slow or slower like it sounds the best conditioned best price house will sell. if the house is not the best and price is not the best it will sit..

I live in Northern California and my goal is to flip houses out of California and roll that income into rentals for equity growth.

You can couple that news with the news out of China today that they have decided to cut their interest rate, lower Bank Reserves, (banks can lend more money) and make it easier for people to buy houses and they are also actively pumping money into their stock market which is to say we were going to have the massive inflation going forward.

What is the blended rate versus simply doing a purchase using a renovation loan. 

Hello BP, I bought a duplex and renovated it too to bottom and now have it rented.

Some sort of owner occupied strategy (house hack or live in flip) is probably your best bet for a first investment.

What kills me are the mailings I get from investors offering to buy my house for a "fair price."  

I was worried this might be difficult to ask them to vacate as NYC housing laws generally favor tenants.