I believe that the seller will shut off utilities after closing, so in hindsight, I should have had the energy company scheduled to turn the utilities on, in my name, the late morning or afternoon of closing :/ 

A general contractor takes on a whole project, deals with permits and the overall project schedule and hires the subcontractors (plumbers, electricians, etc.)

I didn't even know it had been scheduled.

I'll try to adjust my schedule tomorrow and hopefully make it.

Until you have determined this is a potential deal, I recommend you do the due diligence yourself.  1, you will learn some things and 2, you won't waste $300+ on a dud deal.Once you get past the first couple rounds of due diligence and have a feel for when the sheriff sale is scheduled, or have been in contact with counsel representing the beneficiaries of the estate and are close to inking a deal....then reach out to a title attorney...or a real estate attorney that does not necessarily work for a title company.The last thing you want to do is run straight to an attorney every time you find an abandoned property.  

@Mindy Jensen yes sometimes it is difficult to make the Denver group too - but more because my schedule than the traffic.  

Today I am told they did not go out last week as scheduled and said "they can go anytime they want" and they can't do the appraisal because the water is off.

Churches, alumni, fraternal & social work agencies, or organizations typically, along with thousands of arts, education, cultural & industry specific associations make a lot of effort to donate, or subsidize housing---in particular. if your mortgage is $ 300K at 6% apr using $ 2,500 a month in the first few years nearly $ 18K will be deductible. if you're renting to some tenants certain programs will filter far more inducements to both you and the tenant. obviously there are reasons that you'd most likely want to own units that cost $ 60K and rent for $ 1,500 a month to make even more sense out of these opportunities. when i was 23 my best friend a newly mented attorney, who lived with me pursued buying a 2 family home that the City of NY's Housing Development Preservation (HPD) offered us for $ 1. it needed about $ 150K of improvements. we were supposed to borrow the $ 150K at 1% interest under a very aggressive renovation schedule that returned the property to it's fully taxed  assessed value in 90 to 120 days; or we'd have to pay 2% apr for the sums we elected to borrow from an HPD aligned lender. my income was 3 times the lawyers; and i wanted him to live in another 26 unit apartment building we were developing under an even more lucrative program that allowed us to borrow $ 500K at 1%, if we ("I") put down $ 25K. i wound up renovating the apartment building on my credit cards and we walked away from the 2 family: due to the lawyer's reluctance to move into the apartment building. i actually felt that having him in my own apartment really confused the women that visited me.

I have my first scheduled signing for a deal tomorrow morning.Details:Amount to be paid: 105,000Resale value as is (to wholetail @Michael Quarles ): 140,000City evaluation: 204,400Renovations needed to reach ARV: 50,000Exit strategies possible: 1.  

As was pointed out above, she may be on a pay schedule that doesn't line up with your vacations.