Is he pleasant to deal with?

Even with a 21 day contingency, you likely won't have a commitment to close from the lender in time.

But there will be a point in time when  interest rates will rise enough that it will drive out the inefficient or unwise operators. 

So pick a niche that you like and then go backwards in time to determine what would you need to have in place to buy such RE property.

Her packages were left hanging from the mailbox or had dropped on the ground.She then intimated to our inherited live-in Maint guy (who we also eventually evicted) that she would fake a fall, sue & split the money. 

@Justin Allen ...but wait, there is more, you get double your request for only $0.00 + S&H, only for limited time:Here some recent articles good for starters:- one to raise you up:https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/3-important-questions-starting-investing-real-estate/-one to bring you back down to earth:https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/dont-just-dabble-in-real-estate-investing/- one in the middle:https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/cheap-free-steps-today-pro/One way or another you will pay your "real estate tuition" - either in time, effort or money.

  : ) @Lance LvovskyMost US tax CPAs/EAs are extremely busy with the 10/15 statutory deadline at this point in time and getting a hold of one for a consult now will be an uphill battle.My advice, read international posts on this forum, jot down the names of CPAs/EAs whose posts you like, and reach out in a few days.

Intimating that it is free money is like saying I got paid $50,000 last year for nothing ... oh except for the year of 40 hour work weeks I put in.  

In many cases people will move on with their lives and at some point in time wish to finance a purchase of some type.

At some point in time if you can not raise rents considerably higher and pull the equity you will need to sell otherwise the dead equity will turn the property into a liability.