I don't hear about them in the news, they are a non-profit, and because they are local they respond quickly to or are very understanding regarding local problems (like govt shutdowns in DC).

I see your points.One of the things you might be running into is that the IRS's budget was slashed dramatically after the whole Tea Party/Non Profit debacle a few years back.  

@Landy St-JeanAlso check in your HOA bylaws that you can own a non owner occupied property.

I would really like to wield the 401k to it's highest potential, but as additional/alternate strategies I can max non-Roth IRAs and do charitable donations.

Hi All, I've been a non pro member since 2012. 

Both "Notice of Default" (non-judicial states) and "Notice of Lis Pendens" (pending litigation, judicial states) seem to have a publication requirement.

I would like to network with local people as well as non-local people. 

Given the almost socialist mentality expressed in the opinions that I see, I suspect you are catching blowback by folks who probably believe you should be allowing rents for $100/month, onerous rent controls, and insane landlord requirements intended to make it harder to get non-paying tenants out.  

I was especially surprised to see that non-borrower household members could be included in the new debt to income calculation!!!

In other words, banks are permitted to own a tax lien where there is still some hope that the homeowner will redeem, but as soon as that looks unlikely, the banks are supposed to dump the liens because they aren't supposed to own more than a certain percentage of non-performing assets.Not having read Dodd Frank in detail, I couldn't really call BS on it, but this is not my understanding of the overall content of Dodd Frank.