I would love to be a fly on the wall, if anyone in my local area is willing to allow a “Deal Ride Along”. 

I would be more concerned with small/emerging markets rather than those that have had vacation rentals since horse and buggy - like the Panhandle.   

The other thing is if they were negligent, for instance baseball through a window, pennies down the drain (just happened to me), or broke a light horse playing. 

I would say use your own money and ride it out.

if i buy the note and the prior owner never show up to redeem then how do i get ride of that note to have clear title? 

I can find properties using usGS quad maps I can find property corners with uncanny accuracy for a non surveyor.my competition if you think about it.. out here any ways is ladies selling RE.. they are not going to walk a blaze line 1200 feet up a mountain side wielding a machete or riding the quad out looking at a big 500 to 2000 acre tract.. now don't get me wrong there are land brokers in the WEST that are very good at this..

In another post I beat the Training vs Education horse to death, so I'll just post the bare bones idea.

Get it from the horse's mouth!

In the end it appraised for 30k more than I expected it to due to the market riding up (definitely got a little lucky) and I brought 10k to closing to keep the property.

If the tenants are taking care of the property, paying on time, and not making any obvious public indication of their potential illegal activity... maybe you want to consider riding out this risk instead of spending excess time and effort to evict.How long is the tenant contracted to lease your property for?