Obviously, from this thread, I should be offering to pay the state 10-20% of what they ask me, reasoning that no one else will buy them and that I have a reasonable plan to get them actively producing taxes again.  

. - Confidence in our ability to produce a quality product and improve our systems - Trust gained in the hard-money lending community - Excitement for future projects!

The building currently produces $5,300 a month gross and is fully leased. 

Producing 2k/month in cashflow What made you interested in investing in this type of deal?

Forced appreciation which produced more equity and greater potential cashflow Lessons learned?

If it's a good income producing property, you could get up to 75% cash out of the value.

Of course they'll look at conventional ways to qualify you and your future spouse, but they may even look at the future rental income of the other units (if they're vacant) or current income they produce.  

The Tampa Bay area is more than likely not your market with those buying criteria.You will have to put meaningful sweat equity and be creative in your leasing (MTR, rent by room etc) to produce a 3bd SFH  <200K purchase price that cash flows. 

So for example a $550k 3/2 home will produce $55-65k in gross rents.

I got voodoo'd by this on the very last house I bought, where I am *certain* the bank would have come down another $2k but the selling agent magically produced another offer that was going to come up $1k from the bank's offer in order to "entice" me to take the bank's "final" offer.