Within a fairly concentrated area I found about 15 such properties, took some pictures and recorded the addresses, but I'm not really sure what to do next.  

Our agent can't find any record of a mortgage, so it must be private money and we don't know how  much they owe.We don't much care for debt but my wife and I have enough cash to put together a credible offer.

For the record, there was never a real rule for SF that 12 months seasoning is required or will get you a better or worse price than that of selling at the funding table or shortly thereafter.From a SF perspective, any credit risk created in the loan 12 months ago will still be present 12, 24 and 36 months from now.  

But ever since I have been paying my other credit cards on time and received a pretty good raise at work but I still have the default on my record (private loan).

@iman @Iman Yu the properties on Allison if I recall were a bunch of units clumped together, I do not recall the address numbers of which specific units, I am sure if you looked up the tax records you can see who owned which property, I know some were owned by individuals and some by a bank.

You'll need to keep track of every expense (including things like vehicle expenses, interest, lawyers, accountants, permits, tax preparation, LLC organization fees etc.) and if applicable, keep track of expenses relating to different projects separately.

Without sounding like a broken record -- I'm just starting out hoping to grow long term.

I'm not always able to record, but usually it works out okay. 

Made me A LOT more organized, and helped me realize that the best way for me to get a project done was not by keeping my focus on the big picture (I do that easily) but by figuring out what the most miniscule next "action step" was and focus on just that.

However, practically, if you record a memorandum to protect your potential buyer's option it will show on a title search and it may make it more difficult to find a lender who will loan the funds.If your tenant buyer is well qualified they could exercise their option at any time.