Was pleasantly surprised to find that environmental clean up cost only $3k, and paid off $10k various liens.  

They need to know and deserve to know the full picture (I think this is where some people get into trouble, but not taking this part seriously)You also direct them to the benefits of Subject To and if they agree, you fill out a Purchase & Sale Agreement and some other very important documentsYou decide on things like sales price, any money that goes to the seller so they can move, inspection or not, any contingencies you might have, closing date, moving dateThose documents then are used to open escrow and order a title reportIf the title is clean you go on to the next step, if there are issues with the title you clean up the issuesEscrow will prepare most of the paperworkOnce escrow is ready, the seller is scheduled for the signingYou transfer money to escrow, Yes - it takes money to do a Subject To.

He outsmarted himself.He thought he was saving a few thousand dollars but it could cost hm far more than that, plus time, to clean up the mess.Seems he should have called you to represent the purchase.

@Amanda AnderlyI would suggest getting rid of the cats, more inspections and not evicting them on the condition they clean up the floors walls and trim.

So I bought a 4plex in Michigan back in September and hired a handyman who only had positive reviews on Google, Yelp, Facebook, etc.He seemed pretty trustworthy at first and I hired him to get all 4 units rent ready where he quoted me $8000 to paint and cleanup all 4 units..

Because there is market vectoring, and a depleting inventory that will force a shift of pricing basis more and more into the pricing basis of the new built, which we know from data is a ____% step up from current. 

We paid for the cleanup of the site and donated the land to the local Economic Development Corp.

They always throw trash out and leave a mess and another neighbor would go over and clean up the trash. 

As an aside, I find we often focus on returns and don’t discuss risk enough, I find myself more and more pondering risk return.If you’re pretty set on making the move then loaning yourself the funds from your 401k seems the most preferential mechanism since you won’t deplete your 401k, an action you later can’t reverse.

The family decided it was best in this situation to sell the properties to build up her cash, because as @Mike Hern pointed out, states can require the estate to be completely depleted aside sometimes from a few things before the government will step in as the payer for long-term care which is done through Medicaid.