I want to continue investing but have since found that the single family has sucked up all my resources due to the large monthly payment.The home in the north shore has over 200k in equity and produces solid rents , I really do not want to sell the property as I am speculating this home to continue being a cash cow into the future.

Prices here have risen somewhat over the past few years, but I can't discern if that uptick is because of overall market improvement or speculation. 

@Atif F ShahnawazI will say that the real estate business is inherently speculative.

We are nowhere near a workout of residential foreclosures.Nationally banks have 300,000 residential reo's with another 700,000 bank owned but not yet listed for sale.About another 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 residential properties in pre-foreclosure that are short sales or are just 30 days behind all the way to having failed trial loan mods.Most of these properties will be foreclosed as they work through the system or failed loan mod to BK to eventually foreclosure.So in my opinion we are about 3 years away to work through most of the residential stuff.You have to remember that distress is not evenly spread out across the U.S.There are markets that have continued to go up and have zero to little foreclosures.Then you have the speculative markets that are first to rise and first to fall with wild swings in fluctuation.Then you have market that dip and recover but the decline is not as severe and is spread out over time.Whether you wait could depend on your strategy to buy properties.If you are long term buy and hold properties might dip a little before hitting bottom but that gain might be offset by higher future interest rates.If you are paying all cash then waiting and having the interest rate climb by 200 basis points but buying for 50k less might be a winning combo.You have to really explain your game plan more.Investing is not a one size fits all approach.

Unless you're speculating on appreciation, no need to even look into this property.$155k purchase price for 1300 a month rent?  

Rather than continuing to speculate as to condition of title, why not pull a copy of the recorded deed and study it?

If you want to buy for appreciation speculation, but inside the beltline, East Raleigh, South Raleigh, Southeast Raleigh, Pittsboro, and Garner, although parts of Garner are really nice and a great suburb to Raleigh as well, so in some cases you'll pay a premium.I've lived in Charlotte, Virginia Beach and other parts of Virginia, Chicago, and the coast of NC, and I can tell you that Raleigh has the most sound and balanced economy than any of those places.

That one was based more on the subprime loans and speculators buying multiple homes for the appreciation we were seeing here.

This is why it's impossible to speculate about the characteristics of a trust without a thorough knowledge of the trust governing documents, the laws of the state, or country the trust is settled in, as well as the laws of the state or country the subject property is located in.  

Bankruptcy is not something you should be speculating with.