So unless you have $1M liquid net worth or >250K income you are precluded from a lot of that.

So people don’t upgrade until the redemption periods have expired.

They’ve been on month to month lease since their lease expired last year.

Insurance, banking, e-comm fulfillment, apparel are all well represented.

With the backlog the city is generally not rejecting deeds due to shortages, expired lien certs or even for old checks.

If they also have a longer term lease (anything that is not expiring in probably 60 days), then you really have no unit to move into. 

Since you have probably filed a tax return the bank will look at your schedule E to see if you are breaking even on your rental property.Guidelines are always changing so I recommend you reach out to a local lender.

Additionally, if the seller has previous Schedule C/E and you write a letter to the underwriter that you are planning on continuing the same business model, it's possible they will consider it. 

That would leave us with around $70k liquid cash.We rent an apartment month-to-month until we find a good duplex to purchase (ideally within 1 year).We house-hack the duplex until we accumulate enough cash to buy a SFH for ourselves (3-5 years).We retain ownership of the duplex and rent out both units.In my mind, this approach could "get the ball rolling", considering we can't afford to buy an investment property with our current circumstances, nor would we be able to for many years.What would you do if you were in the same boat?

You’ll want to keep this list of names, phone numbers, and e-mails handy for later.When you contact the agents via e-mail or phone, they are going to get an idea of what you are looking for and quickly determine whether it’s something they can help you with.