I needed some minor painting done- and ended up calling 5 outfits before I found one even willing to do the work.

@Carrick YoungThis is the danger of OOS investing lol.3333 Phyllis is actually a single family home (not duplex) that was on the market several times in 2018 and 2019 for $120-130k and then sold to a "we buy homes cash" outfit for almost $.50 on the dollar.

You will be better served dealing with an outfit that has employees and that can handle the job that you are asking them to do.

Buying at a five or six cap without much room for adding value seems like a very lean deal to me but bigger outfits are doing it left and right while money is cheap. 

We're looking for smaller outfits that aren't focusing on the megabanks.

Above that size/value profile, very hard for more entrepreneurial outfits like ours to compete with institutional-level money. 

Used some of the cash-out proceeds as down-payment on another vacation home, which was then outfitted and launched as an STR.

Assume the tax cert holder isn't one of those big outfits who don't pay attention to anything except the return and not expecting to get the house.You could be dealing with a hyper local investor and you should keep a coin handy to see if you'll actually wind up with this place.

"Shared equity" or "shared appreciation" is another option; a few such outfits work on the west coast.

I would have over 2k in sheets if I outfitted our home with those vs the ones I bought at Kohls which were nearly the same.