You're essentially structuring this as a over 100% financing.

If they can't get a loan, and the repairs are really essential, they may have a much larger assessment.

I realize its essentially a lifetime commitment, since there's no real resale market for these.

They can be harder to rent and have a higher vacancy rate and maintenance cost.They also tend to be very management intensive so you need to do it yourself or be willing to sort through the haystack to find the needle.Quality management is absolutely essential to be successful with these types of properties.You either need to know your investment area like the back of your hand or find someone else who does, stay out of war zones and cherry pick the others street by street and block by block.Don't purchase to many to fast.Stick your toe in first and check the waters before you jump in with both feet.

Do involve your Loan Broker from Day 1, as his experience will be essential in helping you structure a financially feasible deal in line with the market.

But if this is a higher priced home (150k + or near the median of the market or a little above but no more than say 250k unless you live in cali or somewhere else high priced), you may be ok.Also, this 17k does not include whatever the needed repairs that will probably be needed since he has essentially abandoned this home as of now.

Trying one out to see what will happen, but essentially just that.

I love the idea of putting out a collaborative ebook, and would certainly think that a link to the website of all contributors would be more than fair.With tools like Google Docs, we could essentially build a truly collaborative document (almost wiki-like) that does what Tim suggests.

They are similar to realtytrac.com but they are essentially real time leads.

Researching the right areas to focus on to find those deals is essential, but in my experience a smoking deal will bring the investors running out of the woodwork.