Also, there is no closing date/time frame, and why would a seller be required to clean the house out before your inspection period is over?

It's my contention that he was wasting time so we would breech that time period

if you borrow 400k at 5% with a 20 year am your payment would come in @ 2.639k  leaving you a cash flow of roughly $900 a month.If you forgo the 1031, eat that tax and and invest the 250k you should be able to get a 4 plex, rented at 550 per unit yielding 2.2k in gross rents netting 1.1k (using the 50% rule) but you don't have all the other units rented out and tenants paying the mortgage for you building equity.Note these are rough numbers but my wife recently helped a client buy a 8 plex here in PHX and the buyer looked at a lot of properties over an extended period before finding one that worked  for them.  

For a season people in our career field made tens of thousands in re-enlistment bonuses, with half in a lump sum and the other half spread over the enlistment period. 

After you purchase a tax lien in Indiana does the holder of the tax lien need to take any action before the 1 year redemption period? 

You have to have a continuous job history, just working in the summer months, isn't a long enough time period. 

And, there is usually a clause that specifies that if ANYONE who expresses interest in the property during the time of the listing period ends up purchasing the property, a commission is owed to the agent; even if the agent wasn't the one that introduced said buyer to the property (which is what seems to have happened here). 

Long-term (5-10 year holds) it is not as important to guess on cap rate, because a lot can change in market conditions for that holding period.

The listings that get to the "extended" period for investors don't make sense numbers wise for a flip.

But when we get it back, it pays us every year for long periods of time.