@Nick Weston - A house hack may be a good play as housing is ordinarily a fixed expense with the IRS giving favorable treatment to the gain on the sale of one's principal residence, exempting that amount up to $250k if you are single and $500k if married provided you have owned the property for 2 years at the time of sale. 

I do have another rental so I played with the idea of using that rentals cash as well to pay it off faster. 

The more I learn about RE the more leveraging your money seems to come into play and trying to minimize your initial investment and even pull money out to do more deals makes sense.At my RE meetups it seems like creative financing is really how all the pros do deals.

Odd things come into play like fire truck access for emergencies, cable and electrical right of ways, drainage and wetlands. 

Larger apartments are more of a fee play vs cashflow but offer greater appreciation through value add on the exit. 

This would solve your lack of immediate funds to float this deal AND will offer you a much more valuable property with a NNN single tenant lease in play. 

Do they always run a title search or do they just play the odds?

It seems that there are some silent cap rate factors at play here that people are forgetting .

The advantage is you are all on a level playing field.

Obviously building conditions comes into play but you need to look at the operating expenses & the current rents coming in.