HOAs are mostly horrible, run by petty dictator bureaucrats, with the help of lawyer mills that live to bill for abatements, assessments and to sue for judgments.

But I would make a suggestion on the payout.Assuming you have assessed that the lender will indeed agree to the short sale, or all lenders if there is more than one (many of the underwater homes are due to more than one loan) and that the mortgage company agrees the seller is in a situation of financial hardship...You will still need to realize that all lenders will have a clause within the sale agreement that the buyer or seller will NOT unduly profit from the sale.

Can someone please help me with assessing the value of a property?

But they won't be calling the borrower about any late payment or assessing late fees and certainly won't be sending any notice of demand for payments.

My current high-level strategy for starting off sub-division is as follows: 1.Find properties with sub-division potential or re-zoning potential. 2.If re-zoning is required assess the precedence for this through historic approvals. 3.Complete due diligence 4.Enter ‘Rent to Buy’ agreement with vendor with clauses inserted to allow me to sub-lease and control over putting through development applications. 5.Secure property on rent to buy and sub-lease6.Lodge and gain approval for development application 7.Source JV partner leveraging from the development application approval. 8.Exercise rent to buy option with financing secured with JV partner9.Develop property and onsell.

If the ARV is $110,000 (a bit more conservative than your number), then the most I'd pay for this property as an investor would be about $65-70K, and I have a feeling that after seeing it, my number would probably be lower.You need to get an accurate assessment of the renovation costs and go from there.

Joel Owens, I agree fully with your assessment.

If you think about it in the terms of commercial cap rates, 5.0% is what A+ will go for, 8% for B; this stuff likely falls in line with that assessment.

The allocation of equity in a lease option has been pretty consistant and is assessed at the time of loan application/appraisal.

Challenge tax assessments aggressively as you buy properties, there are consultants that can execute the entire appeals process for you.