I spoke to 3 lenders today and all insist on me using my own name and transferring after closing which is yet additional fees.

Which is close to round enough, in turn, that it makes me think the lender just documented $10m/yr and stopped documenting additional income at that point because it would serve no purpose. 

I would also add, it's possible you could end up repainting with Kilz which will "seal in" the cause of the smell functionally eliminating it. 

Literally everything to learn about real estate, deal-wise, all comes down to simple addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.

@Tony H TruongYou can skiptrace the owners, great thread:https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/80/topics/659...Those bounced addresses are very valuable Tony.

I've seen folks purchase properties, that have tenants signed on for a year or so, but their immediate expectation was to evict/break a signed lease of one unit, so they could live in one, while the other offsets and provides the additional cash flow one would expect.

@Aaron Gordy A couple of quick reminders about how things are different out here: 1) We have earthquakes, everything has to be engineered to withstand seismic forces in additional to the slide issue.

But different opinions are always valuable.

I have found that education and mindset was first for me in addition to your step 1.  

Hopefully you get a response and set up a sting with the police.In addition, so long as the occupants (who I hope are victims and not the perpetrators) are not up on all their RE info, you can tell them that they were duped and as sad as it is, they needed to perform their due diligence and confirm that the PM or the phony owner who scammed them were on title or not.