House hacking is a great way to get started in real estate when you don't have a ton for a down payment, but after doing 2 myself there are a few things I might have done differently. 

If it is truly a bad deal, that's a different story; I can't answer that for you.Reality is that if you are a long term buy and hold investor, your purchase price really doesn't matter that much.

I think that's the fundamental difference in our thinking.

We were able to put a deal together 10 years later after the sale of a different property in Aurora, CO.

Every state is different.

Usually spending a few minutes skip-tracing and talking to anyone I can find with knowledge of the property uncovers the fraud if it is indeed a fake seller (most often the number that my skip-tracing software computes is different than the one the scammer is using and when I call it I get the real owner who is surprised to hear that someone is selling their property).

I understand I could go a different route and purchase rentals but I'm more interested in what people think of this strategy, to pay down my primary mortgage.

Farshid...I have investors in 17 different countries who I have helped invest in US real estate.

If the former, ok that's a bit different.

@Travis Andres you've got some good comments above but I would like to say something a little different here if you don't mind.