.), scrubbing the public records for notice of defaults (a list you have to manually do as our county doesn't have the records online), bandit signs (but 3 wholesale players have entered our market and take down every sign we put up), door knocking (Which takes up too much time).

Hey Alex heh sorry about that I totally posted my comment on the wrong one lol.

@ Ross Reeves I just looked up pa deals online and it looks like they have a mixed reputation.

So, in my market it generally makes more sense to leave it a SFR, unless you are going to totally blow it out to a huge multi-family, max out the square footage on the lot, and hold a long time.

I am a first time home buyer and am a total novice when it comes to short sales.  

Back-taxes of ~$2650 (headed toward tax deed auction, but perhaps not for another month or so because there is no set date yet)Total Liens add up to ~$6,000, without any interest the city may have added since they have been unpaid for a few years - I'm still waiting to hear back on that, but I don't think they were interest bearing liens. 

FHA has permanent pmi attatched total the loan.

Can anyone recommend a reputable source of online information to find out a property's market value, taxes, liens, owners.  

Pre-approval for a Mortgage means you are approved for a total amount of added debt based on the monthly payments you will have to make to pay off that debt.  

I own a couple investment properties, 5 units in total and have found the buy and hold investment route has worked out great for me here... certain areas in the city have low investment property purchase prices (50K to 70K) with high rental prices.