Obviously none of they knew of the fire or looked at the property in the last few days.At tax sale I have seen people have bought:US Army bombing rangeExpired lease on propertyhouse with 3 walls, 4th wall missingsliver of land 2 feet wide50 foot cliff, access by helicopter onlyland at bottom of man made lake (literally underwater property)wetlandsflood plainsunbuildable propertyfailed perk testhistoric dig site, can't disturbproperty with no road frontagecondemned propertyproperty already scheduled for demolition soonformer gas station with leaking gas and oil tanks undergrounddry cleaning plant with toxic wasteSuper fund sitechromium factory with tanks and barrels of an unknown liquiddistillery with full barrells (ATF and state government was very interested and wanted to seize and destroy those barrells)Bigger Pockets Podcast #82 

To avoid going through the same poor experience, keep reading.Even if someone gives you a referral here, do NOT make the mistake of assuming that the PMC will meet your expectations, just because they met the expectations of the referral source.In our experience, the #1 mistake owners make when selecting a Property Management Company (PMC) is ASSUMING instead of CONFIRMING.It's often a case of not doing enough research, as they don't know what they don't know!

I would love to meet any real players in the area who would love to pay it forward and help someone green like myself.

Sign up for local news articles, go to events in different areas, attend neighborhood association meetings, and just go out and have fun.

@Sung Yu You can 1031 exchange your fourplex into a single-family home, provided it’s initially used as an investment property (rented for 1–2 years) to meet IRS requirements.

Instead, the code is now written that I can build as many units as I choose as long as they meet building code and the total floor area to lot area ratio is 1 to 1 (the lot is just over 6000 sf). 

Look on Facebook as well for local investment pages, you will find a lot of local investors that you can meet with. 

Or you can directly meet them by registering to real estate events around you: https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521-events-and-happenings 6.

@Jennie Berger The RS-3 Zone allows for Single-Family residences & 2-Flats as "Permitted Uses"; however, the RS-3 Zone still requires 2,500 sq.ft. of lot area per unit (i.e. 5,000 sq.ft. for a 2-flat) unless the lot meets the exception for the characteristic of the block as previously mentioned by Nicolas; then it can be reduced to 1,500 sq.ft. per unit in order to construct a 2-flat.

How do you build trust with homeowners or sellers when you can’t meet face-to-face?