If I hold a special warranty deed, can someone put a claim, if the previous owner has passed?

Don’t go out of your way to put yourself on a REPS treadmill you can never get off unless you fully commit to the decades or lifetime of defer defer defer and never realize the income.

I will definitely put your suggestions to work and investigate multifamily house rentals here in MA. 

I crunched my numbers as well, If he puts down a 100k, I now have 135k technically tied up.

You also need to inform them of the redemption period and probably put that in your contract.   

Put them in the room with the ant problem and it will be gone within a few days.If you have ants outdoors, there are shaker bags from Terro that make it easy to walk around and sprinkle the poison.

Income is $600,000 per year and husband and wife both work full-time non real estate jobs.Is it true that the tax benefits are greater, or realized more quickly, on purchases like furniture or televisions to itemize a rental property, when they are made AFTER the date the property is put in service?

Understand you will need to put 20-25% down on a multi-family. 

There are so many variables to putting this deal together as it could be a win, win situation.

I've heard too many horror stories about people that pay cash for a property because they think they are getting a deal.A moron of an owner could see they could get a much higher price if they just put in the exit signs (etc) and then sold to someone with a bank loan.