Hopefully it's not a large, national, publicly traded bank - those offer us as investors hardly any benefits and unless you are doing MILLION$ of dollars of business you are barely even a customer to them.  

House #3 seemed like a pretty easy little flip that didn't need too much work, but the economy continued to tank, and we barely got a profit out of that.

I have one that was built in 1909, and this thing causes me issues every month, I barely cashflow because im always fixing issues... 

Bank owned properties are no longer trading at the discount to make it worthwhile to purchase.  5 years ago the spread on the REO and standard sales was big enough, but these days the discount barely covers the extra transfer taxes and extra repairs typically needed.  

(for example the area we're looking at a house producing 100k in income asking 1.2million) when you factor in taxes, maintenance, cleaning, etc that barely breaks even or even looses a bit.

In my area there are huge swings from year to year, with some years being super snowy and others getting barely anything. 

Eventually either sell it or rent it out once it cashflows (current market rent would barely cover mortgage alone, but eventually would be able to cover maintenance, repairs, management, etc.)

Its location was barely a threat to the house even if it fell in the worst possible way, but my tenant worries about things. 

bare with me stuck in my house for next two weeks, so a lot of time to post and think...

No driveway, no culvert, no meters, bare land that need some cleaning up, some timber, tried selling half the land.