Upon this , he said I have a place, the man had just gotten out of the hospital after 7 months and the estate was eating out of his retirement fund with taxes.

Back-taxes of ~$2650 (headed toward tax deed auction, but perhaps not for another month or so because there is no set date yet)Total Liens add up to ~$6,000, without any interest the city may have added since they have been unpaid for a few years - I'm still waiting to hear back on that, but I don't think they were interest bearing liens. 

Also, do you know what your tax basis in the property is?  

Since you won't have ≥20% equity you will still pay PMI, which you still are paying insurance and taxes even once paid off. 

Can anyone recommend a reputable source of online information to find out a property's market value, taxes, liens, owners.  

I sent the marketing piece to the address listed in the tax records but apparently this address is incorrect.  

I am thinking that i should be able to take advantage of both in the form of ROTH and using after tax dollars and thereby allowing me to take advantage of compounding effect of tax free growth.  

I live on the island too and wanted to get some rentals, but what keeps me back is the high taxes on the island. if you dont mind saying what towns do you have rentals in?

If you just want to pay self employment taxes and waste money so you won't have a gap on your w2 and/or to qualify you better.

Maybe if you have a massive income that you need tax writeoffs for, or something along the lines of that, then perhaps you might want to set a deadline to buy something within the next 90 days.Also, have you built before?