You claim to be a Philly investor and yet you don’t know that?

Prices kept going up, up, up and up and we were building new houses and condos all over the place, many built to sell mostly to speculators, not people who were actually going to live there and on top of all of that, much of it was being paid for by these INSANE mortgages where someone with rotten credit could just claim they made whatever amount of income and/or owned whatever amount of assets, didn't even have to show any proof of it and would walk out with a mortgage, assuming of course they'd pay a higher interest rate!

Not terrible, but in a very different league than claiming $256 an hour.

The squatter was claiming rights to the land.

Does not matter if the property is a rental or your primary residence; you cannot claim a full lump-sum deduction for the rehab cost in the year you did the work.

There is the issue of rents and financials being manipulated, vacancy not being true or other misleading claims, but we'll skip that side.I don't know Lakewood, but I'd first protect my money by knowing my market, the local regulatory issues and code requirements.If you are going to invest as a slumlord, find out how life is with slumlords in your area.

 (2014-2015)  do you submit a 1099 To the contractor for the 2014 tax year even though you wouldn't claim those expenses until the year of the house sale 2015 ?

You are correct that you are learning as you go and sometimes that is fine but when you begin to break laws and just claim to be ignorant of the law that will leave you in a bad spot.

Their job is to write title insurance (and avoid paying claims unless it's their error).It's the dealmaker's job, in my opinion, to solve problems, including title issues.

Neighbors don't like the property so they watch it like a hawk and when the required time passes they get it posted so the buyer knows and can't claim ignorance.