It is kind of a weird place in that there are only 2 bedrooms and small single bath but huge living room and decent kitchen, 2000 ft of living space with 1600 ft of attached finished garage.

This was built in the late 1920s, is brick and plaster, 1 story (+ basement & attic) on a stone foundation.

Rehabbing all the bathrooms and kitchens with trendy weathered wood and farmhouse style finishes?

The escrow company charges around $100/year and then they handle the property tax and insurance payments, late fees, etc.We put about 10% down, which basically covered his commissions and closing costs/taxes.

Those circa late 1800's Limestone & slate block homes have since been razed to build $million homes.

Seeing this everyday I'm sure was a factor in my friends' brothers' delilberate demise.The renters helped me clean and paint beginning a few days before finishing yesterday. 

It could be everything from doing probate start to finish, or a Quiet Title Action (you need an attorney for this one) to needing an affidavit or two, to "you are good to go "as is" (I wouldn't expect the last option to be the case.

Just finish my 6 yr mark so still have plenty to go lol. 

More so than many other cities I believe.Roll forward to late 2017 up till today. 

Not having an NMLS or real estate broker license doesn't automatically mean that what they are doing is illegal since there are provisions for one-off mortgage lending by unlicensed individuals (lending your nephew money to finish the garage being a good example), but there's about a 95% certainty that if you're doing it for a living and/or actively putting yourself out there as a mortgage lender of any form (like if they are doing enough volume that they use email templates...), you are supposed to be licensed.Another flag is anyone asking for up-front fees before you're even in escrow, or fees once in escrow that exceed a normal appraisal cost.If BOTH of these tests fail -- no license AND up-front fees -- they're almost certainly a scammer.