Jacinta,I'm rather new to this myself...so please take this answer with a grain of salt and consider other's responses with equal or greater weight.It is not uncommon for companies in the US to form their LLC's in Delaware for asset protection.

This has depressed RE in that market as supply / demand equalize.

And all other things being equal, I would choose renters with large dogs over ones with small dogs.Tanya

@Joey Arata Most landlords change a deposit equal to one month's rent.  

Over the weekend, a listing agent I met with for a property stated I needed to put down 10% EMD for a property which equaled $12,500.

I wouldn't be surprised if their is a balance on the mortgage that the property isn't also in the foreclosure process since the mortgage is likely to be as equally back due as the taxes are. 3) Based on the results of the above your next steps could be any number of things, but a good estate/probate attorney might be a good start as they can likely help you untangle some of the mess...then again a real estate attorney may also be helpful to guide you through the issues with the bank and tax liens4) If you do decide to you're not completely scared away by what's going on and want to do more due diligence than I'd consult an accountant as well.

If both units were equally good units, I would probably go with the new unit, especially if I used the same company for my servicing.

50% rule: rent * 50% - P&II'm over here playing with my financial calculator, and found something interesting.Rent * 50% = what you want your P&I payment to be equal to or less than.You can use that and a financial calculator to back into how high the mortgage could be and, it still make money.So if there's a triplex that pulls $3650 / 2 = $1825, the mortgage could be as high as (brb financial calculator...) about $370k which works out to a purchase price of about $495k. 

For the writer of the call, the payoff is equal to the premium received from the buyer of the call if the asset’s price declines, but if the asset rises more than the strike price plus the premium, then the writer will lose money.Like a short call position, long put holders believe an asset’s price will decrease and buy the right (long) to sell (put) the underlying asset.

My near term goal is to accumulate enough properties such that I have a passive income of $4k per month which about equals my current living expenses.