Looks like they own a second loan on an abandoned property I'm buying.

Boards on windows to property right and left=FEverything in a two block radius looks rented or owned, but three blocks over a few houses have boarded up windows or look abandoned=DMost everything looks occupied in a 4 or 5 block radius and you see several work trucks in the driveway or evidence blue collar folks live in many of the houses=CI don‘t buy A or B properties, so I can‘t help there.

Letters to owners of vacant/abandoneds, code violations, tax defaults and every other distress I could think of.

It's in Point Richmond and you have to drive through abandoned Point Molatte , along the bay for about a mile and then go up a really, really rough 2 mile dirt road and when you come over the hill, you can look at this sleepy little 'pirate cove' that you want to swear you've seen in Pirates of the Caribbean ;-)

I think I've decided to abandon that whole thing altogether, including the realtor whom I've yet to meet.

There are some smaller properties (less than 50 units) that may still have less than 10 occupied units because most owners have abandoned them because the cost to maintain is higher that they can rent them for. 

There are a few areas of Japan real estate (most stable tenants in the world, insanely low interest rates, steady cash flow, big time tax loopholes, very cheap and reliable property management) which if taken advantage of properly can yield you big returns, but I don't think abandoned houses are one of them.

an abandoned house next to the one I wanted,  and two houses with old tarps on the roof on the same street.  

I had been  trying to locate the owner of a vacant property, that was abandoned 10+ years, records showed it was owned by Huntington Bank,  spend a lot of time calling bank local, and regional divisions and then the  assett companies for Huntington Banks.

Partially rehabbed and subsequently abandoned.