@Mike McCarthyThat is exactly my main concern right now.

Traditional financing is probably out because of debt-to-income ratio.Anyone know the pitfalls of getting a HELOC in New York, or have any preferred lenders?

The sellers will simply decide not to sell and simply refinance or place new long term debt and wait for a better cycle time to sell.If investors put in tons of low ball offers themselves then maybe once in awhile they get very lucky but they will be on tons of owners and brokers IGNORE list.Now I can see sellers who are not sophisticated like in commercial real estate be able to be more easily manipulated.

Unless you are planning on using this property as a source of income right away you could also consider paying her off with 100% of the cash-flow unit your debt to her is paid off, then you wouldn't necessarily need to refi, unless you wanted to pull money out to reinvest.

By Day 40, had anyone called the tenant's place of work supposedly inquiring about collecting on the tenant's outsized gambling debts?

Anyway I would like to do some renovations to the home now (cosmetics only.. exterior work mainly) and also start working on kitchen and bath cosmetic updates.

I have a ton of questions but here we go....I am interested mainly in buying and holding, learning about that first, then getting into flipping and tax liens somewhere down the road.

If I hold and pull a HE I'll get about 80K after paying off some other debts. 

You cant get anyone to buy debt unless this person is signing it over for a small amount to take over the mortgage.

My main goals for getting into RE investing is that I'd like to retire by 40/45 (if possible) and have the freedom of not having to work for corporate America.Hoping I can learn a lot from this community and start my path for financial freedom!