But I have other things to do, like make money in RE as I have bills and college age kids, etc.

BTW I am a soon to be college graduate (2013) who will also have student loan debt.

I understand in order to negotiate at all I need to get the previous owner to sign a release, does anyone have an example of one?

Property Wars looks like it is produced by the same production company as Storage Wars (the storage locker auction show).

It does matter what the previous chain of title shows, as J Scott said, so I'd focus on the deal at hand, and not buy from the guy again.

I would agree with article if they were comparing with storage units, strip centers etc-but not businesses like hotel/motel or restaurants.

havn't invested in anything yet and am still in college.

I have a previous employer based 401K that I will be moving into some form of self directed structure, possibly a Solo 401K.

My only problem is that, I'm young college student, and I barely make money; I don't have a down payment to start with, and money is tight right now..To make it worse, no one in the family knows about finance besides me...

Yes I am aware and prepared for the 2d appraisal and I offered to pay for it and I have gone through the 2 appraisals on previous flips.