Haven't seen interior yet except peering thru windows but estimating about $35,000 to uncover and refinish hardwood floors, replace some windows, paint everything inside, lite kitchen updates, some new appliances, and light bathroom updates...budgeting to replace one boiler immediately.It's up/down 3 bed 1 bath on each floor, would rent for about $1400 per side in as/is condition, but could fetch 1750 per side if updated.  

The exception to that idea are Super Liens like property taxes which automatically take priority.  

There are of course exceptions to the rule and being in a good area will help.

They will help you with clearing exceptions to title in most cases.  

Don't get me wrong, I personally bought a few homes sight unseen, but these were exceptions - I knew the area extremely well, my local broker has done multiple deals with me in the past so I could rely on his assessment, and I already budgeted $xxx to fix random things that could show up in buying a home sight unseen.I invest out of state.

I've been told that your first property is the hardest and for me thats no exception, I want to make sure I do this right the first time.

I am looking at a property on auction.com. it is an "occupied property" I have done the title work and it looks like I will get a clean title with the exception of the occupied status.There is clearly no one living there.

Hey All,My name is Duane White, my wife and I really have no background in real estate except learning from books, BP and couple of local real estate investment clubs, plus a lot of courage determination and willingness to learn to help us along. 

And for me, since I had already been investing, there were only a few nuggets and I cvant even remember what those were except to learn that they lost money on about 1% of their deals.When you first start learning about investing you feel like you are entering some secret club with...well...secrets to investing.

Also to be fair to @John Montgomery since I am in the Chicago Market...I understand the market for Hard Money here in Chicago is very different from other markets...The market would benefit from more competition because the handful of HML have their pick of the litter and can cherry pick deals...on average they won't even do a deal with a newbie rehabber, and if they will they will only fund the rehab portion to protect their interest and limit their exposure to risk.Cook County is a much harder county to do foreclosures in, and that creates a lot more risk for the HML...Finding a Good Hard Money Lender - matter of fact I wouldn't call most Rehab Lenders in Chicago HML because they function mostly like banks except for the interest rate and points...They want 20-35% of Investors Cash into the Deal based on Acquisition and Rehab...no matter what the % ARV is...Oh, and they still want 680 Credit Scores, and Full Doc Loan Submission...Not anything close to Asset Based Lending...Any HML that are considering moving to a market where there is a ton of Opportunity, Chicago is a great market.