The duplex is probably in a living trust judging by that title description.

@Robert Hernandez from your description it does not sound like you can raise rents very much.

I once met a landlord who offered the tenant's references (previous landlords) $50 and said "now tell me the good, bad, and ugly about your tenant."

I also met a couple last week that rent out rooms around Cherokee St.

The pre-approval used to get on contract will be for the $150kOk that sounds good I would like to chat with you on PM of phone and discuss further. thank you so much for the great broken down step by step description. 

Would you use their description of condition as the basis for your rehab cost estimates?

If you have a septic system that might be an issue as the minimums go up for a septic, you will have an issue if there is a shared septic.Speaking of shared amenities, a shared well can be an issue, often you can file a written well agreement for the new legal descriptions, same with any common wall or driveways.You may not need a "proper survey" (in Cali I'd not be surprised if you do) but I have done minor subdivisions without a surveyed drawing.

In addition, you can even get more specific about limiting the power granted by stating that it is only valid for use in the transaction involving property given by the address (and the legal description).

I met a guy at one of my newly purchased places and while I had met his boss at the City Hall (not Chicago, but a Burb), this guy actually went from vacant house to vacant house to remove sticks from the lawn and make it look decent.

The tips above are somewhat "standard" - good practices to follow in any case.Another somewhat "standard" tactic is to use what I term "friends and family" (others call it "choose your neighbor"); see the next link for a post where I gave a description of that.http://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/312/topics/44534-creative-ideas-to-sell-homeI think that you could also use a more "niche" approach here.