Born and raised real estate agent here who can help :)

Third thing to consider is that raising taxes on rental income will raise housing costs for the poor.

I was about 5 days from closing on my first place (an up/down duplex + cottage)...when the lenders (a typical residential / investment lender) said he would not fund the transaction...because the appraisal came back saying that it was a "raised mobile home" - and they don't fund mobile homes.It wasn't obvious that this was a mobile home by sight - apparently it was just the foundation of the mobile home that was used and then was re-finished (new siding, new roof, etc).  

So raising money via other people and using other means of leverage like bank loans and credit cards are the other thoughts that come to mind.

oh and THANK YOU for your service.

Born and raised out here :)ThanksRyan Woods

However, I went to the first meeting and the main speaker was an out-of-town guy giving a super high-pressure sales job for some MLM program called "Financial Education Services Protection", which didn't actually have anything to do with real estate, other than he was pitching us to pressure credit challenged prospects into buying this (my opinion) predatory program.

If underwriting hasn't noticed it yet, they will raise a flag as soon as they see those 4 leases. 

Eliminating the balance raises the fico score.

So you need to establish if the seller has sufficient equity or cash to pay it as its his debt not yours.second off you would simply raise the price to cover the lien.. are you looking at a 203k loan ?