A vacant single family teaches you processes: buying an investment property, assessing and performing whatever fixup needs to be done, marketing to get it rented, collecting applications, the legalities of your state's tenant/landlord laws.It's true that when it's vacant, it's 100% vacant, but as you learn how to be a landlord, it won't be vacant often and then it's 100% occupied.

We talked to three banks, two said no, then we got financing with the third. 

I'm new and hoping g to find others who are interested or if there are some solid performing notes I can invest in with my Roth to begin taking some action.

I'm thinking that maybe the house shifted a bit as part of the move and that there are no real issues with the house.I'm trying to get a contractor to check out the property and let us know if there are any significant issues they can see, but from my understanding, even getting structural engineers to check out the property would require significant time and resources to perform a full evaluation.

Let the viewers decide what works, and you dont have to spend a lot either. see sample below.Run 1 ad for a week,Run 2 ads (copy 1 and a new ad copy 2)Run 2 ads (take and use best performing ad copy and run it in conjunction with a new ad)Run Highest performing ad only.hope that helps!

Nothing should be done by a third party aside from the inspection. 

I have had substantial success with everything from SEO, to third-party e-commerce platforms like Amazon.

@Aaron Ziebart, I'll second third and fourth everyone here. 

I am liquidating all of my under performing properties at the moment and stocking cash.

My best deal came from the MLS, another from direct mail, and a third from a referral.