You should also consider doing a HELOC if you have equity in your current property. 

I have nothing against sweat equity but time and sanity are worth something too.

Ian, there are some really good agents that work with investors at RE/MAX Equity here in Provo, UT. 

Also, Michael's strategy worked for me as well - starting out as an equity partner with experienced sponsors played a huge education role in my journey and allowed me to make some cash along the way. 

I never even look at IRS .. the chance is so remote that they redeem as to not even be worth your time.. or my time.they only redeem REALLY high value HUGE equity deals.. and those are rare at tax sale.I suspect this is very simple.bid at auction stroke a check.. and check to see if there is a redemption period for the owner.. many states its one to two years.. and many states its done no redemption period.. unless there was a defect in the noticing..

Unless you have a crap ton of properties its fairly easy to just update the numbers once a month by logging in to your banks website and copying over the new principle balance figure. my excel simply shows property address my estimated value, the debt amount and calculates total equity. 

. , how about a $50k loan then use cash and give up some equity to another partner? 

We currently own a house in Seattle, we bought it 8 years ago, and we owe a little over $160k , i recently asked a bank institution for a HELOC loan and should be getting about $180k equity in the house to invest. 

But you should only do a sandwich if the payment is really good and there's some equity, otherwise it's too risky and it would be better to assign it.Besides that, it looks like you have a solid grasp of the numbers.

I've purchased my list from list source of 600 solid leads (Absentee, 50%(+) equity, 10+ year deed, target zip code here Columbus that I from an investor for a good growing area).