And they certainly wouldn't be able to get financing anytime soon to cover the full payoff for the seller.In other words, basically everything we're doing these days is short sales...

Once you have this info you can basically start tracking down the owner with a full understanding of why the house is vacant and how you may be able to help.Just remember when dealing with abandoned properties, confirm EVERYTHING and assume NOTHING.

When taxes aren't paid the county sells Tax Certificates, which is basically a loan made by an investor to the county for interest.

Welcome to BP Ben.Ben, you're not ready to start there my friend, you need to begin at the beginning, basic RE, what is customary in your area.There are different situations, every deal is different, and ther is no answer to your questions, as it varies.I always suggest people begin by getting a book for real estate agents, even if you're not going to be an agent, it is used by the RE schools for agents.

Sit down with a calculator and do some basic math.

yepDon't know the age of your unit, but mine was a basic NG '03 model.Mine wouldn't let the pilot stay lit???

If you slapped that on the mortgage of the first property, the numbers now look like this:65000 x 0.4 x 0.088 =2,28865000 x 0.6 x 0.043 = 1,677For a total of 3,965, or an improvement of 585/yr.But if you used the 13,000 as the down payment on another property like the first, then instead of increasing your income by 585/yr, you'd increase it by 3,380.I'm at work, so I don't have my spreadsheets for checking my numbers and I may well have goofed something, but that's the basic gist.Hope this helps.

I found the forums lacking on evaluating growth investments alone (perhaps this is more about "investing" than speculation).Please also let me know how to get my basics down on RE investing - references to books, CDs, online tutorials, whatever you think might help.

One of the lots they paid over $300k for, the other is basically someones front yard.

Geoffrey,Basically, the broker is the one who has a relationship with the client (the buyer or seller).