I appreciate all the good reading material!

@Richard Poitras - Finding Canadian centric material is tough.

I know that my drive from the rental homes to Home Depot, etc it's considered business, but that's basically all I've been counting as business... drive from the rental house to anywhere for tools, materials etc. 

Yes, generally you'd see an external ongoing leak.The most likely culprit is a small leak inside the wall, in which case you'll need to open it up a bit and address the issue.

I think she goes overboard trying to get everything back to original, but she seems to do a good job.One place I disagree with her is when she garbage picks for furniture and building materials.

You can make this house look pretty good for only 10K if you know how to pick materials and find cheap labor.

Along with Material Participation as a Real Estate Professional, you might also want to consider grouping your activities together.

There is a roof above this porch so there shouldn't be puddles of water on the porch.There is a paint type waterproof material that they sell for wood decks.

Search the entity as they will need to be in good standing to convey but also look for contingent liabilities as Adam mentioned.After conveyance of title you should be in the clear as any judgment after the sale usually can't touch you, unless there were issues unique to that property and there should be, a final clearance on title prior to filings to avoid last minute claims.I'd say the biggest issue will be from new construction or repairs being made to a property within the time frame allowed to file workman's and material liens.

Selecting a so-so 120K rancher in a rather mature area could suffer due to external factors.