e.g. absentee, tax liens, probate, compliance issues, or simply overgrown / abandoned.

If you fail to remove your property or the property of others, we may consider such property abandoned and may dispose of it as we deem appropriate.

Basically, if you have 2 homes on the neighborhood that get investigated several times of the year for illegal dumping, abandoned vehicles, vacant board orders, or high weeds/grass... it's probably a more distressed area.I also walk the street on Google Earth to ensure that I'm not across the street from a metal recycling facility, railroad tracks, waste water treatment center, landfill, trucking warehouse, etc.Another interesting look is to use Google Maps to find all of the Starbucks in town.

I have seen some really rough stuff that you would think was abandoned that is not. 

An abandoned mobile home park, a 1/6 interest in a patented lead/silver/zinc mine (30 acres), and a substandard lot next to a creek in a High Sierra ski town.Tax sales are fun, but sometimes they get out of control with bids, that is one reason why it can be profitable to buy prior.

This same department has cited us for $250 lawn care for an abandoned property next door to another rental we own & again we go in to explain it with a survey & again we have to go to housing court clerk to straighten it out.In another town we have been inspected & cited mid-winter for gutters damaged by ice yet the home across the road has had a torn tarp with multiple (torn shredded) layers on its roof for 5 years.

Multiple pest infestations, abandoned cars, dogs wrecking the place (I have a strict no-dogs policy).The 65-line-item makeready comes to $13,882.So I'm told by my PM that the woman (who had five dependents on the lease) fell in with a bad dude who had a crack problem or something, had nasty dogs and was abusive.

But I find it hard to believe that a property can perform that well without something being wrong with it (on its last legs, high vacancy, in an absolute warzone, Detroit-like abandonment from an area, etc).

The whole area is dangerous, (burned out buildings, vacant/abandoned properties, high drug/crime activity in the open, etc).

We even did two tests using outside management but abandoned them both after a short period of time.