Devin,Thank you so much for the info, I will look into this.

Granted this charge could be the one from 1996?

I know this can be expensive.  

Quote from @David Nathanson: This is a great question. 

If you don’t mind living with other people, this is the easiest way to get into REI with little capital from you. 12 months after living in the SFH or multi unit, you can then look for another property and rinse and repeat.

So, this is why your lawyer may have estimated high.

Purchase price: $60,000 This was our first home.

It's a great opportunity to be here and one thing that brought me to this community is the idea that we will not swindle grandma but we want everyone to benefit from our deal.

I have the chance to do this right with an investment mindset.

My biggest advice is to start investing where you have a good network of people you know like and trust...this especially holds true if you will be investing out of state.While it's not impossible to go straight to the commerical I personally found it easier to start in the residential world and then make my way over to commerical multi-family.