hi zion. let me give you a quick education on how you can do this. first, let me say that doing it yourself is not a great idea. yes, you can learn how to do a pretty good job, but the experts are the experts, thats why you pay them. that being said, here is a basic education. go to the record of deeds office or county clerk or whatever you call it in your neck of the woods. sit down on a computer and plug in the address. look for anything and everything to do with that house. look for liens especially. after you find any open liens for the last, lets say 50 years, look forward for lien releases for each and every lien. if you find the releases, then those loans/ liens are finished and will not be a problem, unless something stupid comes up on them where someone signed in the wrong spot or the date is wrong or something like that. anytime someone places a lien on a house, be it a mechanics lien or loan or back taxes, they have to file paperwork with the county to do so. it will be recorded. anything that is open and has not had a release of lien, is still a valid claim against that house. simply put, the complications involved here, especially if you have never done this before, is exactly why you pay an expert to do it for you. good luck

If that's the case then you may not want to live in a marginal spot. 

No, your advice is spot on; what I was kind of figuring.  

@Trey Watson was spot on - Pat loves to talk a lot, but he knows his stuff.

Maybe I should write for the chamber of commece.. at the end of the day I would still much prefer to live in the Napa Valley ( which is were I lived before I moved up there) but its a pretty nice spot really.. and I travel extensively thorugh the US on work.. so I see many metro areas and their housing stock..

Additionally, it has a deed logging road, and has a transmission line touching the property in two spots with 3 phase power.Today the broker got back to us after we asked about solar power potential and he says the substation is away from the site (about 4 miles).

I think you will find yourself in a tough spot if you are requiring HML and you are having to fix these things up yourself, as your carrying costs are going to be tremendous. 

with out knowing how to spot or test for these problems in your system you will not know that answer.

Ruth is spot on!

My plan is to put a fence with a gate and rent out spots however my questions are does anyone have any experience in this and what permits are required?