I would recommend selling your portfolio through a residential broker that specializes in Chinese investors trying to get special visas OR sell them together to a real estate investment trust (REIT) that specializes in single-family housing.I know Seattle is hot right now, but doing them one by one is going to be a time and energy suck, but I am not an expert on Chinese single-family investors.I can help with a portfolio sale to REITs, which is going to be faster than selling piecemeal and you bypass paying a real estate agent's commission.

What's concerning about this is the previous owner; more importantly the Bank or Mortgage holder can possibly step up and request ownership.  

Not a deal killer but a "tell me what is going on here before I put an offer on this".Let me tell you what no one else is telling you here:  If you cannot service the debt on the note to the lien holder, they take back the property and you are out all of your down payment.  

You could even have it programmed to send the business card holder a "thank you, nice to meet you message".For travel (and for certain rentals) I like the Airbnb app.

Only thing that was a pain was insurance - the holder of the loan had to have insurance to protect his investment and I had to have it too so that was double the usual insurance cost.

The article you posted is clickbait for "eliminating mortgage interest deduction":In the article it says "The National Low Income Housing Coalition’s United for Homes campaign calls for reducing the amount of a mortgage eligible for a tax break from $1 million to $500,000—impacting fewer than 6 percent of mortgage holders nationally—and converting the deduction into a credit, allowing an additional 15 million low and moderate income homeowners to get a much-needed tax break."

Once a tax lien is placed on the property, can the county/tax lien holder take the property out from underneath the note holder if the borrower continues to defer his taxes?

rough rough estimateplumber to set the tub; hook up the valves/etc - 800tile and grout the floor - 600tile and grout the walls (assuming around the tub) - 1200install vanity / toilet paper holder / towel rack / mirror / cabinet handles / faucet / etc - 800paint / baseboard / caulk / finishing touches - 800install a new ceiling fan (just a simple replacement) - 150somewhere in the range of $4-6k would seem reasonable to me for a random well rated contractor.I would aim to have one of my guys take care of it all for under $2500

Yes, because if you are handing over money to a seller on a monthly basis for a property I would hope you have gone through a purchase process and are listed as the owner of the property, with the seller as the first lien holder. 

I had my other friend who works as an escrow processor run some info on the property and it looks like the home is 100% owned in the family trust, no loan or lean holder.