I did it reluctantly at first but maintaining control in the property management process is important. 

Personally, I wouldn't purchase my residence without title insurance - my parents nearly lost their home when I was a baby because of title issues that didn't become an issue until years after they'd purchased.  

Yep these properties are always offered and some unknowledgeable investor will think they are getting  great deal.A few years ago, my son found one of these tax sales properties that was controlled for years by one investor, he forced the cancelation of the tax certificate and offered the city $30,000 for this commercial property, after a few attempts, the city accepted the offer.The property now is worth over $300,000, it has  two large apartments and a store on the first level.Talk to the right people in the city, present your proposal and they may accept it.Good luck.

I also am not a fan of HOA as they have to much control and the rules can be voted and changed at any time.

I made more mistakes during the boom, not buying based on the ability for the property to support itself but speculating on the fact that the market would never stop going up and would be the exit.When the market crashed I lost big because of that but when I regrouped, I learned how to buy in that market and those are the investments I still consider my best.

I am so lost right now so please just bear with me!!!

Casually talking to someone and he says he lost his job and he wants to get into" house flipping" ...the market is insanely hot here and there are very few deals and there is a foreclosure coming up that meets my criteria finally ...he says that is the one he is going after to flip and that he has a family and he needs the money so I should sit this one out !

The fact that the property is being flipped frequently gets caught late in the game by the lender (frequently in a quality control audit just before going to documents) which can burn a lot of you valuable time available under your purchase contract. 

I have done this since 99, with only one situatuion where I lost money in a vegas home that i waited too late to sell, if i would have sold it at the right time I would have cleard 100k+ in just a 3 year time span - oh well im sure alot of other people can say the same thing.  

Worse case you lost a day on the market.