The people for some reason had water turned off and were doing the deed every where.

Now I am selling it for a 925k sales price, I will have to pay off around 300k of mortgage and then there is the realtor fee (3%), a seller contribution of  20k.

You are better off doing a HELOC on your current property or second mortgage 

We have a 480k mortgage on it, we have a 400k heloc as well that I use for investment purchases and then refinance after we fix up to pay the heloc off.

Are you an aviation engineer and your company just lost its next contract.Do you work in an assembly line making wash machines and they outsource to China.Are you a concrete worker and get laid off since construction has cut back.On this forum the question is how is your REI moving forward.  

With long term rentals (or any house aside from a flip), you are unlikely to make money off the sale of the home if you have only owned it for 2 years after you pay the realtors and other fees.

One never returned my call or answered the phone, I immediately crossed them off my list. 

@Brittany MageeDo they have a mortgage on it, as typically the lender will require it to be repaired or they take proceeds to pay off loanUnfortunately not much you can do

If you are using a lender, I believe they would insist that it is paid off at closing so that you have a clear title.

So my question is: if I wanted to save on the recording costs, keep the deed for my records, proactively pay taxes as they're billed (would coordinate with the company I buy the CFD from), then work with the borrower to get the deed recorded under their name once they've paid off the contract--am I putting myself at risk?