studying where to buy a property

[Shahriar K.]

Hey everyone

Although I have bought 2 properties before for rental, I have never bought a property of flipping. I live in Surrey BC and trying to find a place in one of the cities next to Surrey as the price of houses is cheaper( in the 300,000 range). I am looking at houses with above 1000sqft, 3 bdr, 1 bath min.
I am searching sites:
mls, craigslist, kijiji, vancouver sun, province newspaper, usellahome.com
I am right now tracking properties in a spread sheet (both price that we are looking at buying and want to sell for) too see which ones are selling and in what period.
I am also using bc assessment website to see what aprox. price the surrounding properties are worth and how much they have sold for. Trying to get mls access which my friend who's a Realtor should be able to help me out with.
I am also trying to read and drive through the city itself to get a better feel of the city and trying to find out if the cities population is growing or not. We are looking at going to check out some of the houses that meet our criteria.

This is what I have learned from reading the forums here, but just wondering if I am missing a step or I can do something better.

Thanks in advance