That makes it that much tougher to get deals but when they’re had they’re good as gold.

Anyone that's been investing for longer than 13 minutes will look up the assessor info on who owns it and how held, when they bought, for how much, etc in less than 2  minutes  (outside of TX apparently) so that's not Zillows fault.Good thing for flippers is most buyer's are owner-occs and won't do this, so I see your beef. 

@Nick ParksYou can get such lists from places like ListSource dot com.There is no way to know how much equity a property has without actually speaking to the owner and their lender.However, it can be guessed based on when an owner bought and how long they have been there.

We bought our duplex using FHA program 3.5% down (property is located in Los Angeles) through a mortgage broker and the loan was sold to Wells Fargo. 

As a result, I'm now a CMF at the Fool and I try to help other Fools learn to invest.I bought my first rental house in 1/17.

I bought my first primary resident home in my early 20’s.

What the roll looks like, your cost basis, when you bought it, the occupancy history of the asset, the market etc.

I worked with a bank to purchase other multifamily properties I bought in the past but they were all under 4 units and that bank would not do a 5-unit. 

Etc....... there are about 10 duplex’s before mine and they are all alike (townhouse kind of styled)....MY duplex starts the next set and there are about 10 of ours as well (side by side styled) across the street and the rest of the neighborhood are alllllllll single family homes that are pretty nice and well maintained.So I recently cut down a pine tree from my front yard that I felt like was just a hassle due to the pines that it dropped leaving a constant mess...I bought a Japanese maple tree to put in place of where the pine was and some small shrubs to fill the middle of the duplex and the sides.....The duplexes I mentioned that were BEFORE me all have small trees alike and all are maintained by some landscaping company and from mines down all pretty much have PINE trees.

There's been cases when someone bought  dozens of properties subject to, fell behind on all of them because of tenant problems on some of the properties, resulting in dozens of motivated sellers, thinking they solved the problem dumping the problem on a rescuer, losing their homes, and having bad credit to boot.There were extensive discussions on real estate boards regarding the issue: Subject_to_problemsIf you're taking about a 2 year master lease, maybe you're thinking of leasing with option to buy.