These figures all contribute to your total cost of capital, and represent important points to consider as you go about obtaining a loan.Term length: How long is the loan?

First obtain financing then find the off market deal.

@Apostolos Karnavas- thanks ...if your uncle is providing 100% of the cash needed - you will have an easier time that  if you need to  obtain  financing  ...if  needing a loan - all lenders  will need to documents  funds used  and make sure  the people on the loan  can  qualify ....also most lenders  will not be willing to  complete a loan in a LLC ....I would suggest  getting a loan pre approval  in place for a  future  purchase and if needed - add  uncle to the loan or  another person  if needed

If he has not signed a rental agreement/lease and/or obtained possession of the unit in some other way, then he is not yet your tenant.

If you were to be in the market for a ‘fixer upper’ and getting into the world of REI (thinking ahead to using this as an investment/house hacking down the line) The Good Neighbor Next Door loan is another one that could work for you as a teacher (even if you worked part time and taught even a co-teaching half time schedule to maintain teaching status- I would verify that with a lender and still obtained real estate license (I can try to help you connect with some if you’d like) but for you specifically as some lenders you won’t be able to qualify with a commission based (potential at that for now) income for two years (two years of tax returns) in a lot of cases. https://www.hud.gov/program_offices/housing/sfh/reo/goodn/gnndabot Along these same lines a Homestyle loan product may work for you too, having a decent down payment and great credit score.

I obtained an estimate to replace all of the previous items and it will cost roughly $18,000.

The numbers work, however the sellers are cryptic in their responses and have a situation where the (they say) the town is allowing them to transfer the liens when one of the main terms is that a sale will trigger payback of the liens working 15 years of obtaining the liens (which they are).  

@Carlos Rosas You mention "Tax Lien" investing, but I see from your other posts you are looking to obtain properties for fix and flip.

If there was equity, the heirs would likely sell the property to satisfy the loan and then obtain the equity.  

For the sake of the rest of the post I will refer to it as a CFD.The tenant/borrower can obtain an insurance policy which will look similar to a renters policy.