Please share experiences, surprises, advice....

Not long ago, I bid on a property and was pleasantly surprised they didn't require one either.

i do a lot of driving around too. however, contacting your local municipality also works. go in to the office and ask if they keep a list of  any vacant houses or houses in physical distress in the area. you would be surprised what they know. finding the owners is easy too. just ask the same people at the municipality. another great way to find the owners of a vacant house is knock on doors and ask neighbors. every neighborhood has the neighborhood busy body that knows everything about everybody. find them

In the future, don't be surprised if someone else from Cozy answers questions here on BP.Thanks for the support and curiosity everybody.

From a tax perspective, it gets complicated (surprise, right?).

You'll start to get an idea of what a wholesale value is in your areas, and if you stay conservative you can absorb some surprises.

I don't want to find big surprises later. - My GC's inspection and assurance convinces me.

@Victor Simental check out some of the material on house hacking and you might be surprised what you can do with the funds and income you have.

They have also listed it on Zillow / Trulia which kind of surprised me ( Estimated at 55k)Also, checking the county records the property is evaluated at 18K.

I was surprised by the amount of long-term costs I calculated and even more surprised by what my biggest costs were going to be!!!!