As for what I can bring to the table, I'm an environmental lawyer, so while the rules of ethics (yes, we have them!)

I do understand the warnings as stated above, but in my personal situation, if they stepped out of line about doing something wrong, or rent was pushing almost late, we told them the rules and how it will be right away and put a stop to it.

Without improvements, many areas will remain stagnant and deteriorate.What's affordable is not easy to define.

I know that involves SEC rules and such. 

As a general rule, I would never pay any up-front money to a lender or lending organization.All the love in the world to the entrepreneurs who take the risks to start up businesses and bring new services to the world.

It would give me a better idea for determining if it will cashflow and what I should be offering on these properties.Alternatively if anyone has experience with foreclosures in the CNY or Syracuse area and has a general rule of thumb (if one exists) for making offers on foreclosure listings I'd love to hear about that as well.  

Constantly be improving your listings, and your systems.

Quick question if a property purchase at a tax sale and I did preservation improvement on it paid taxes 2 yrs and had possession can I get certificate transfer over from family member name too mines without redemption period starting all over or do it remain same after transfer?

If you haven't heard of them already some quick rules of thumb are to look for properties that rent for 1% or more than the purchase price and generally you should expect about 50% of your rental income to go back out in expenses like property management, capital expenditure, maintenance, vacancy etc.

Just ran into this problem, had a tenant interested in the apartment with a "American Bulldog", she met the 3x the rent rule with verified income.