I've thought about writing the letter specifically about the back-tax situation, but my intuition is this will probably trigger negative emotion.

It was stressful, there was a possibility I wasn't going to get the loan, and I had to be flexible (had to do 20% down instead of 5% in order to get the loan and I had to escrow money to do repairs after closing.With any distressed property, especially a property without utilities on I would try and buy cash or private money from now on if possible.  

I have an extra room in my primary residence and I decided the best way to start and learn would be to rent that out.I guess I am just looking for general advice as to what I should do in this situation and what I should be looking out for especially when it comes to screening. 

What is relatively new is the “mortgage stress test” where banks shall add an additional 2% on the top of the landing rate to make sure people can truly afford it.

But we came across a sort of complicated situation.

without listening to any of the details of your situation. 

Appraisal is the wild card and honestly not many ways around it other then a good agent...and even then can be hard.Catch the wrong appraiser on a bad day at worst your screwed at low price or beat case you challenge it and win...but this still takes time.Remove the appraisal and you have much more control of the situation but lack a lot of the lending options...But 30 day can still be done and is done often (and runs concurrently with inspection so assuming you get past that).

Capital Gains – Depends on your tax situation 6.

I'll look into that first.Just curious...why fuss (in this situation) with trying to change zoning on the property or deal with city permitting?

For this situation, you probably want a gate latch which is a regular style handle that locks automatically when pulled shut (i.e. it cannot be left unlocked by accident).