That return improves when you buy below market value and that takes care of some of your concern about a market downturn.

I have the option to purchase it for 130k, which is below market value (owner is family).

Is there something I can do to filter out these cases so I have a more concentrated list in my hands of real potential leads and not just garbage.

Every short sale regardless of lender requires the "arms-length transaction" certification that has wording like below:"The Buyers and Sellers nor their Agents have any agreements written or implied that will allow the Seller to remain in the property as renters or regain ownership of said property at any time after the execution of this short sale transaction.

The tax code info is below. http://www.irs.gov/publications/p946/ch03.html "...For qualified property placed in service in 2012, you can take an additional 50% (or 100%, if applicable) special (depreciation) allowance.

My Realtor suggested that I may just want to "change the air filter" each month and do them myself.

Look below this Window, and you will see a list of names of people that have posted in this thread.

This post is meant to seek out thoughts on what to best do with them.The unit I am working in is below another one, so removing this one probably means that I would need to replace the one above at the same time.

Baseboard is a nice clean heat better for people with allergies , I would check the boiler and if checks out leave it as they are pricey to buy new or if you have the money and space rerun the system using pex below the floors as that heating system as my plumber says is better than you could even think.

Greater Houston is a great place for real estate investments given the deflated prices compared to other US markets & the impressive population growth.Here are a few tips in this market:- lack of zoning makes knowledge of subdivisions(neighborhoods) VERY important; so know your numbers by subdivisions, i.e DOM, avg sales & rental price per sqft etc- market in Houston below $150k is overpopulated right now- too many people & too many transactions- so don't be fooled by recent sales data since they may be inflated; true value of SF investment properties should be driven by cap rates; SF rental market in Houston in north of 10% cap rateLet us know if we can assist on any way- we provide data to help investors find their own off-market deals.