You (or someone who you are miraculously able to wholesale this to) would be responsible for cleaning up the title. 

Advertising, cleaning and maint, insurance, legal, repairs, supplies, etc... 1) Because property #1 wasn't "on market" during the renovation, does everything apply to the basis? 

Which stages need to be approved by the bank203k streamline and 203k "regular" are quite different in their requirements.

I've been in their apartments and they're clean.  

That they just don't get what the special/different needs are for investors when compared with the regular clients.  

the big issues there........ the government is corrupt as hell. especially in the muskegon heights area. my brother has had no end of trouble with these people. also, other areas of muskegon, such as the city, they hire out their inspections process to a place called safebuilt. these people are worse than the government over there. my brother sells a lot of his houses on land contract. these people simply refuse to accept this as a sale and call his houses rentals. they claim this gives them the right to issue him tickets for repairs needed because he is the " current owner of record". they use a portion of the government system that is outdated and has inaccurate records to claim he is the owner. consequently, he winds up in court all the time with new " violations" on these " rental houses" that he has full proof that he sold years ago. as of yet, he has be able to beat them in court just by proving that he no longer owns them, but he is going to court almost every week with them. i believe they hope he will just give up and pay the fines. that is not gonna happen with him......lol. but, just so you are informed, muskegon may appear to be a good place to invest, but you will have serious hurdles to jump over on a regular basis. 

hi chaim. i have not bought any houses at a tax sale. i have however, bought a few after the tax sale. here in erie county new york, if you buy from a tax sale, it can be a great deal. however, whatever was left on the past due taxes, you now owe. hence, you just bought yourself a liability. i don;t know about anyone else here, but i can manage to create my own bills myself without buying anyone else's tax liability. so, watch out for that issue. it may just be a new york thing, but maybe not. one of our local municipalities here has their own tax sale auctions aside from the county. that one, if you buy from them, you get a clean slate, no past due taxes left. however, they like to start the bidding out at what was owed to them, so, there would be no " leftover" anyway. by the way, they sell very few of them. lol. i usually go back to them after the sale and offer to buy some of the " left over" properties, usually for pennies on the dollar and i get them. you think they would figure out to start the bidding low if they are gonna sell them cheap later on anyway. but, regardless, even after i buy them dirt cheap, i still get them with no left over taxes owed. also, you need to know if your state is a " redemption" state. i. e., can the owner come back later and redeem their house by paying the taxes?

Surely there will be expenses (cleaning the house, making repairs, changing lightbulbs, etc.), but how large exactly are these expenses?

Do you do regular maintenance inspections?

I loathe getting my spring clean up bill from my PM, it's alway a couple hundred bucks and, while necessary, annoying.You'll want to start as close to the 2% rule as possible, so about $85k this place would be a steal.