One easy thing to do would be to request credit limit increases with your current card issuers, since that can lower your overall credit card utilization ratio (which is rated high in factoring your score) without opening new accounts.Here's some other tips from My Fico: http://www.myfico.com/crediteducation/improveyourscore.aspxOne last idea for you.

Real estate is fairly easy to estimate because there is so much information available.

Easy one.

Paying off the 12k lien money is easy, but how can I take possession of the property or title if the front line person of the trust is nowhere to be found.

That way you know you get the correct info, or at least it's pretty easy to figure out when they lie to you.

If you have a good credit history, securing a mortgage can be easy.

one less temptation for owner/landlord to seek "easy" tenancy3.

Challenge him to be very specific and don't let him off easy when he says "I just want a deal that makes sense and money."

In fact, I prefer houses with this issues and it is almost always easy to solve and people are scared of it.

On a side note, I am also putting a small amount of money into LendingClub.com in crowd funding unsecured notes; higher risk then something asset backed, but the site makes it damn easy to spread your risk.