Got two leads, help me dissect

[Eric NA]

I sent out my first direct mail marketing campaign. I got two calls the first day they arrived (yesterday). I felt ready but after going through both calls I think I'm behind where I need to be. These are all OOS owners.

Owner #1: Wants to sell 5 properties. Purchased in 2006. Not a single one falls into my target area (I had a targeted list that slightly overlapped a bad area). He's VERY motivated, because he just had 2 of 5 go vacant and one of those two got vandalized. Without even knowing how to perfectly get an ARV, I can tell you he owes right at what they are worth, maybe a tad more or a tad less but pretty close. I honestly don't think there's anything that can be done.He admitted on the phone he got burned when he bought them. Best bet is just to get them rented and keep trying to sell them.

Owner #2: I was happy to receive my second phone call so quickly until I found out he had 7 properties to sell!! He lived in my area for 17 years, then moved. He doesn't have a property manager but has all 7 properties currently rented. He has 5 properties grouped into a commercial loan @ 7% variable. I can see through the assessor website what he paid and calculate what he likely owes. I actually think there's a deal here to be made based on the rental amounts. These properties are also NOT in my target area and they are all very small houses (less than 1000 sq ft). I think they could be a decent deal for a landlord looking to acquire more property if the owner is willing to take a small hit when he sells (he sounded semi-motivated on the phone).

In the end, I called both owners and told them I was going to refer their information on to someone who is more familiar with the area their properties are located in. I talked with that individual today, sent them an e-mail with all the info I had and it could potentially work out to be a referral fee if one of them pans out.

So my questions now are, did I do something wrong? Should I have followed up with owner #2 and tried to working on getting some of the properties under contract? Some of them weren't that far from my target area. I was extremely overwhelmed by 7 properties, on top of the other 5, so I felt like it was a bit more than I could handle for a first deal. I did ask him if he'd be willing to break them off and sell one by one and he said yes, so that was a possibility but I don't know anything about commercial loans and how that would work so that made me nervous as well.

I feel like I can come up with a somewhat accurate ARV, but how in the world am I supposed to estimate the repair costs on 7 properties over the phone based on the descriptions? It was my understanding that I want to guess at the repair costs over the phone based on our discuss and then go look at the property and adjust accordingly once I've done an inspection. Am I off base here? I'd be looking at 7 properties in this case that may have 0 chance of working if I don't get the seller to agree on at least some basic numbers on the phone.

When you have a tenant in place, does that change my formula? If I can get a price that will satisfy the 50% rule and still cash flow, do I need to subtract additional money for repair costs?

All in all I'm happy. Sent letters Monday, two calls on Thursday and both were at least decent leads even though they didn't work out. I know most deals won't work out and I am ready for that, I just want to make sure I have everything in place when I find a seller that has what I want.