Another claimed that he had temporary credit issues but I found judgments that just fell off his credit report, demonstrating long-term financial issues rather than a temporary issue. 

Take your time and become familiar with the many distinct markets within the Cincinnati Metro area; as you may or may not know, the city has an East side and a West side that are quite distinct and then the various beltways around the city provide for other distinction.  

If you do not have your license, what issues have you run into as far as for sale by owner and closings? 

I'll have to look a again to see who the seller is.I did visit the site and there is no visible issue with the lots.

I was looking to do a cash-out refi to take money out while locking in lower rates, but now that the properties are in the S-Corp, I am unable to transfer back into my name to refi without creating a taxable event.I am wondering if there are any strategies to moving these out in a tax advantaged way (I expect there will be some cost to doing so).Some strategies that have come up in other conversations are:1) Form LLC and issue a note to the S Corp with the properties as collateral... then if S Corp defaults on the note... the properties will be transferred with out triggering taxes (although cost basis would remain the same)2) Have appraiser apply discounted valuations on properties due to lack of marketability (I am only a 50% owner of the S-Corp).  

Imagine you have crushing stress from a problem property, any kind of letter addressing your issue at that time might be welcome, and you would call.  

When we did it we discovered a few additional things that needed to be fixed that would have posed a huge issue if not corrected in the future.

You're not also flipping the property, so the cost of money isn't really your personal issue.

This allows me to do a 1031 exchange and get into newer properties with better tax advantages (once I have used up most of the depreciation from the previous rental), and it allows me to never deal with deferred maintenance issues that increase my cost of ownership.

The issue you're going to run into however is the rate that owner will likely be pretty high.