I would say your best bet is to see if you can purchase a home with an assumable mortgage. 

I really see Columbus Ohio as an extremely safe bet for the next 10-20 years.

In my opinion, Baldwin County is probably your best bet if you are looking for long term renters instead of yearly turnover.

I don’t think this is the borrower homestead since the records have a different owner address than the physical address.This is confusing because we aren’t buying a foreclosed property, we would be foreclosing to take possession.

If not, I’d bet there was no partnership return.Assuming a 50/50 split, you should take half of all income, expenses and profit and report that on your return.

However, if I'm just looking at the structure/improvement I believe that a home would depreciate following a curve in the same way that most physical goods depreciate on a curve (in terms of real dollars, adjusted for inflation). 

Some sort of owner occupied strategy (house hack or live in flip) is probably your best bet for a first investment.

Your best bet is going to be to join the facebook groups, there are 3 major ones in Lansing.

There’s not much else it can be unless it’s in really bad physical condition, which the PM would also notice right away. 

If you're looking to avoid a rather large tax hit, a 1031 is probably your best bet.