The money is paid with receipts on the day of the tax sale.  

Become an LO in the Private/Hard Money space, and pursue both.

The flipper folks always like to say "you make your money when you buy," meaning that the lowest possible and highest value entry price point is one of the most important things.So let's visualize a single story office building.

That's why it's not selling.In most markets, your Maximum Allowable Offer (MAO) to a seller should be no more than:        MAO = (70% * ARV) - Repairs - Wholesale_Fee        MAO = (0.7 * 290K) - 40K - Wholesale_Fee        MAO = 203K - 40K - Wholesale_Fee        MAO = 163K - Wholesale_Fee               - OR -        MAO + Wholesale_Fee = 163KSo, you'd need to get this under contract with the seller at under $163K to make any money at all as a wholesaler.At $200K you're NEVER going to get any interest from experienced rehabbers.This is also why you probably got no resistance or pushback from the seller.

You further implied using a hard money lender - why?

Umm thats not how that works..Time is money and honestly (125k/468k) is a 1% return.

It would really suck to lose money and also have to pay taxes. 

It's time deploy $$$ into other opportunities including the one with your partner.The cash-flow would have to be crazy to hold it and that's if you don't need the money, but it sounds like you do for the next investment.

You don’t want them denying a claim because you were trying to save a few bucks. 

Multiple, billion dollar companies are investing substantial amounts of money into our area, such as Intel, Google, and Amazon.