My county's website says they currently aren't holding tax delinquent auctions, which isn't what I'm after, but it made me start thinking that maybe most counties aren't even offering stock of which properties are owing taxes. 

It forces you to work "on your business" instead of "in your business" because you aren't able to just drive by to fix something small, you're forced to develop systems to help you run things. 

Still haven't found a local bank or credit union that has one of these mythical bespoke loans, perhaps I've just spoken to inexperienced personnel who aren't aware of them either. 

You probably aren't finding 10% COC in any major texas metro...

Either one will give you the road map to not only fixing what's keeping your score low, but keep you from spending money on things that aren't impacting your score. 

I need to say up front that construction questions aren't my strongest skill set.  

They aren't that big of ticket items, but I would do a walk through now.This is your opportunity to build a rapport with the tenant.

I agree that the other units probably aren't updated, it seemed like the range of rents was pretty wide too.Those are basically my first impressions about FHA vs conventional loans as well.

This will help you start to see how these criteria impact what your site can actually support, so when you actually pursue a project site and you get an engineer involved you aren't surprised by what he tells you can be designed for that property. 

But in the summer it is $400+, but does it really matter if we aren't the ones paying?