The advice, forums, and podcasts have been essential for me becoming an investor.

Plus you must deal with all of the paperwork that must be filed when your an agent. 

This way I'd essentially have no money down and extra cash on hand to fix up the basement (plumbing issue, 8k-10k, 4 bidders so far).

The problem is, my relative is going through a bankruptcy and he said the "paperwork has already been filed with the bank", I guess to surrender the house to the bank?  

I had one flip deal fall through (repairs were too much), but it mainly fell through because the homeowner received a lot of letters and he called multiple people and bid the asking price up essentially.

It costs $0.25 per transaction, so essentially $0.50 for each payment.  

You have no paperwork.

*Our LLC signed the lease, which he would be responsible for as well (FYI, the LLC only has 1 property in it, which is currently 40k under water, so essentially has no assets).Looking back on it, I easily could and should've done this deal on my own.  

Can you talk to the code enforcer, explain the tenant problems, and essentially ASK for him to post your property for no occupancy for failure to comply with the requirement for the common area meter?  

The deals we have closed required very little negotiation, essentially we just made offers right off the bat that were satisfactory in the owners minds.