I honestly don't think I would go the one coin op machine route, but it is something else to consider and I love being armed with as many options as possible so thanks for passing the tip along.

Just make sure that all transactions that involve your 401k are 'arms length' and that there is no conflict of interest. 

If you don't you force the contractor to find his own way of making up that cost. 

That keeps the property on the books and forces them into moving forward with the auction.Competition - - possibly, but it's been empty for a long while and the bank has yet to move so it's not likely that others have followed up as you have.

Ideally you are buying low enough such that you can force the appreciation without spending too much in rehab.If you do that, in 6 to 12 months you can often refinance, and if the market is still strong it will have appreciated 3-5% in addition to moving it up to the median value for comparable properties.  

They stopped paying rent and I was forced to evict.

@Marylin OShea A challenge for military members is that there is a highly likely chance you will move every 3 years to a new duty station, which makes the decision to purchase a home somewhat difficult because if you do choose to buy a home, you will have to come up with a game plan on what to do with the home once you are forced to move.

I have all the basic infrastructure in place and am just about ready to go full force forward.That brings me to the title of this post.

So why are buyers being forced to pay broker fees in the note space. 

The only equity that came into play was forced equity through remodeling and increasing rents.