@Lucas A Johnson welcome. it's always great to have a tax expert around. are you a CPA who works exclusively with real estate investors? also, out of curiosity, do you personally invest in notes, real property, and etc?

this is a great discussion... i believe Dave Ramsey is perfect for people that are insolvent and dealing with debt issues. i think John Bogle is great for those that are solvent but haven't done any investing yet (i still have a large portfolio with Vanguard today) Robert Kiyosaki is a great fit for those seeking "passive" income and cutting uncle sam out of the picture (by fully understanding the cashflow quadrant) and then of course we can get more sophisticated (velocity banking, infinite banking, buy-borrow-die, private equity, etc) I'm just shocked schools teach you everything except preparing and filing your own tax returns, which you're required to do for most of your life In retrospect, I'd rather learn that than calculus. in sum, i think there's something for everyone, depending on where they're at with financial literacy. but our education system intentionally prepares you to be a worker/consumer vs an employer/investor.

PML for notes? I do PML for my buddies who use the money to acquire properties. but if there's a niche for doing this for notes, I'm all ears and would like to learn more

i live in the dc metro where MD is a tax lien state and VA is a tax deed state. And as Rob stated, there are more specifics at the county level. might be helpful to look at the statute for the state and then the rules at the county level to see how the game in played in their jurisdiction (... or just use AI to gather the facts 😀) if it's a tax lien situation, they can probably just pay what's due and the lien would go away (that's how it works in MD). if she wants to sell and the property is distressed, she may want to find an investor that specializes in novations.

SDIRA is a "future" play, particularly if you're young. For a "present" play, might want to consider other strategies such as buy, borrow, die; infinite banking: or maybe even leveraging real estate and the real estate professional status. there is also a loopholes for short-term rentals some people are using.