@Mark Elkins  apples and oranges as it relates to HML and a conventional loan your not going to keep a HML at bay unless you file a BK.. one reason HML do not ( generally make owner Occ loans) these are commercial.. so that tactic of hiring a lawyer and claiming mortgage inaccuracies is not going to work most of the time if at all.your talking about the deep recession times 10 years ago and there were many deals to be had but in todays market .. not so much.HML in todays space are pretty sharp pretty competitive and generally were not making loans in the same manner they did 10 years ago.Only way a first position lender here takes a cram down is if the trustor  did so much damage to the property that the property is not worth the 300k they are owed.. and bare land as you know in those areas is easily worth that in most cases.

Often times, investors tweak the #s to make the deal barely function (on paper) and do not leave any margin of error. 

Why would this guy not just do the bare minimum amount of repairs to get the city off his back?

but bare with me).

There are current ones on the market that would barely cashflow in C neighborhoods if you're ok with that with 3 of 4 units occupied at full market rents.

I suppose at some point all these investors who are barely covering P&I will have to sell, unfortunately there's a line of like-minded people willing to buy them at ridiculous prices.

. :-)All the realtors I used in the past were high school educated and people who were barely surviving in the industry.

The only non-paint issue I have come across is that there can be no bare soil next to the house.

I just took 300,000 lbs of crap of off a lot in lake Oswego Oregon the wealthiest city in the state of Oregon.. land under the crap 100 X 125k lot bare is worth 600k.. like Austin prices.. homes going up will be north of 800k each.. 2 of them. so yes happens every where.

You are pissing off your neighbors and you give those of us that do more than the bare minimum a bad name.