I have $120,000 in a fund with a local bank and want to use this money to become more involved in real estate.

Not with 1000s on the market in your area that are distressed.Not sure I'd want to get involved at all since if you buy it at a foreclosure sale, he may still not want to leave the house, or he might push his best buddy for some extra time to stay rent free.

I plan on trying to increase equity in any property I get involved in-I have a construction background and a couple of contractrs I would like to get involved with me if this could become a reality.

Usually it involves a 1% fee and you will have to be underwritten.

I think more of what you are asking is how the occupancy level and accuracy will affect what kind of loan you can get and how much you will put down and how much the debt service will be.A regular lender at 90% occupied maybe 6.5% fixed at 75% ltv.If you get into value add deals you will pay points and a much higher rate to fund and lower LTV.You will then need to refi after stabilizing about 1 year out.So you build the carrying costs into the amount of time needed.The books will determine the verified income and actual costs.From there you run your desired cap going in and that tells you around the price you want to pay.Now if the books are out of normal standard margins you have to ask yourself why that is (deferred maintenance,undisclosed credits to tenants,disguising fees paid to themselves in other line items,etc.)

With that said if you were looking to purchase at least you could use this as an option if the owner were to ever receive the OTD (Order to Docket) dont get me wrong some lenders are just down right nasty and will still proceed, but if you have no money involved and just contract paperwork by all means it is worth a try.

Another reason why lenders are slowly releasing foreclosures is to stabilize the market.

Many of the successful firms involved with real estate have returns around 8.0% to 9.0% annually.

Another thing you might consider is to find a local real estate group to join and learn first hand from those actively involved in deals.

So, if it were me, I wouldn't like losing a good tenant but I certainly wouldn't sell the place because of it since I know it wouldn't take me more than a couple days to fill the vacancy.To even get me to THINK about selling, someone would have to come up with a good reason for selling that involves me be able to use the money from the sale to do something different and make even MORE money/cashflow.