Gaining leads as a new investor

[Toby S.]

I attended a real estate investors meeting for rehabbers last night.  The leader lead a presentation on how to determine an offer amount on distressed properties.  While the information seemed very useful for the many seasoned investors in the room, he mentioned several things that concerned me.  Namely, that when evaluating leads, he only takes properties that meet a certain criteria and essentially passes the "junk" along to newbies.  He later mentioned that when evaluating a property on his own, through his experience, he is able to estimate costs fairly accurately by doing a brief walk-through.  He then suggested that by the time a new investor might arrange to walk-through a property with a contractor, that he or another seasoned investor will have already bought it.  

This may all be reality, and I understand there's competition. But my question is how does a new investor without a builder/contractor background identify potential properties? Are people still finding good leads on the MLS? I am aware of other means such direct mail, etc. I would love to find out what others did to get started or what's working for other new investors. It's otherwise a bit discouraging that think that any moderately good deal will be gone before I can find or analyze it. I greatly appreciate any feedback. Thanks everyone!