You'll see "time" listed first as that is not related to management or active measures taken, but just sitting on it and waiting.

A few weeks prior to my purchase, the house that was sitting on this land nearly burned to the ground, leading to it being demolished and the land going up for sale.

I ask because while free and clear houses will kick off more cash flow (I assume you have a target cash flow to retire in 5 years), they will also place you in the potential position of law suits since you would have so much open equity and the cash sitting inside the walls of these assets would be yielding a ZERO % return.

@ Joe Gore Do you feel that it is my responsibility to sit down with the seller and explain to him/her all the ramifications of all clauses of a contract?

This country is full of people with money sitting on the sidelines making 1%.

If you can rent it and you only use it for short periods of time through the year, then always rent it and never buy it.The only exception would be if you find one of those things at some subterranean price, and you can afford to have the place/toy sit idle.

If u have a sit down with them after u purchase the property and let them know that if u don't receive the first pmt on time u will immediately evict because of their track record they may get their act together.

Now, if you were going to be wholesaling or flipping your income would likely be deemed active and you might benefit from paying taxes at the CCPC rate.Again it is a matter of sitting down with your team (accountant & solicitor) and determining what arrangement is best for you now and how you will transition to a different organisation in the future.

A house sits on one lot that we're going to rehab and resell.

I'm sure it's often the same way in most government offices, I know my neighbor has slow office times as she has mentioned it being boring at times.Now, understanding that, and knowing most have their computers sitting on their desk, I'd think of the tens of thousands of IRS and finance officials it would be prudent to assume they may lurk on some internet sites, for giggles if nothing else.