I paid $20K for it and an almost identical house literally across the street recently sold for $52K.

I agree--if the government pays to write down the loan amount, then the government should be able to recoup some of it when the property is sold.

I received the full $600.I ended up putting it in a penny stock...I figrued it was free money...might as well gamble a bit.WWEI....crap little stock but swings in predictable cycles...at least it did over the summer.I couldn't have gotten luckier with my timing bought at .06 and sold at .18....went to .20...now its back down.Litterally like going to vegas.So I tripled the money to 1,800.I kept 600 in my trading account.

I don't have a copy of that contract.

The city controls this by making people bring either a copy of their deed to the water dept or a copy of the lease agreement before they can put the water and trash in their name.

Property is sold to another party.

I do have a copy of the Preliminary on PDF - I don't know how safe it is to share with someone but if it's not that harmful I can email it or post it for some advice.

There are many vacant REO properties but until they are sold and added to the pool of available rentals it doesn’t help the supply side of the supply vs. demand equation.

Chris thanks for the info, chris i also found out that my thoughts were correct.there is no set value, the value of the property is based on what makes sense for you to achieve your investment goals (that's it).some will say to not rely on the cap rate for your purchase decision (which i agree), but to use it to compare to other similar properties that have sold in the area, which is actually not reliable because 1. there will be less comparables, 2. how properties were purchased vary from deal to deal, 3. the inner workings of most transactions are confidential.so the best way to analyze a deal (while using cap rates) is to add your financing terms into the picture (principal + interest and etc) and calculate what the deal is really worth to you.see the normal NOI/Asking price = cap rate is based on if someone were to pay all cash, this is the return they could expect first year, but paying all cash for a property doesn't happen all that often (bank funding will be use for a large portion of that cost).so i found the best way to use this formula and analyze my deals is by look at all factors but also including my financing terms with my desired return objectives into the picture to get a proper view and value to me.

Any thoughts on how to try and get it sold?