I do work in IT department of a company but would like to get more involved in real estate.

I put a call into the city building department to find out what kind of pipe they want as well.This will be my third major expenditure on this sewer line in 6 years.

In regards to a fire pit in addition to blaming insurance many times you can blame the county or the city fire codes.The fire departments do not like fire pits at all and many have ordinances against them.

Bankruptcy doesn't make them worse (we joke they can't get worse when they don't even exist any more), but the reduced debt load and restructured city departments makes more money available to use for city services and makes the services more efficient.From a real estate investing perspective there have been opportunities to pick up cheap properties for years and years.

44.71 per unit for water and sewer combined per month per unit sounds low to me unless the usage is in line with averages for the area (you can call the water company to verify standard gallon usage for expected people living in that size of a unit and water engineer for the department can tell you).

Are there certain departments at a bank to call and ask this information, or is there a department with the city/county to ask about who owns the property?

Morgan in the Department of Housing & Community Development (DHCD), the DHCD will now notify the Tax Sale Division of the CSR application to ensure the $100 application fee is collected upon redemption.

Best to call your zoning department and reduce your unknowns.

What Texas does offer to homeowners however, is the option to pay for testing (as I am recommending you do) and once the results are received - assuming they show no further mold problems - provide an official Texas Department of Insurance form completed by the air testing company showing that all is well.

, My suggestion would be to find a Property Management Company that you can work at and gain experience, a lot of then have a sale department too, you may find that Property management is not your thing after all, you can do a lot of things with your license, working for a PM will give you the 2 year experiences you need to get a broker license if you decide to go that route, and who knows you may end up becoming a partner or buying the PM business.