However, since its the attorneys that order Title for their client, the attorney has to eat the cost of Title's work if the deal doesn't close.Similarly, I try to manage client transactions to minimize exposure to costs. 

@Jeff Shu can already tell this is NOT a great tenant.Maybe a "good" one, but not great.Even if you cover with gravel:1) How will that stop animals from defecating?

Termites don't eat metal and you cant pull a house with it so isn't that a better more solid construction than a wood subframe set on the foundation?

It's pretty common to obtain 100% financing for both the purchase and rehab funds after you've been doing this for a while.Borrowing, of course, is a two-edged sword because your interest payments, especially for a hard money loan, can eat 1/4 to 1/3 of your profit.

If I want to eat healthier, I assign more points to the positive habit I want to focus on, but also reward myself for NOT doing that bad habit.

As my Dad always said, 'There is no eating ice cream in hell- get outta there...

@Austin Berlick,There are essentially two ways to outsource the grunt work of “landlording”—unfortunately, both will eat into your margins.The first is to hire a professional property management company—this will cost you between 5% and 15% of rents, plus surcharges for out-of-scope services.

Also know that turns are costly and will eat into your profits like an alligator.

Maybe also combine that with moving job market where people don't have 20-30-40 year company careers, but need to change jobs every 2-3 years now and  change locations with perhaps 401k cashouts, or more expenses that eat up savings between jobs, and moving expenses between jobs.

Actually, in this hypothetical case, you'd be better off eating the $19k lien, tax lien, or whatever it is, 25 years of daily dog walking sucks!