. (: Every lender knows Zillow is crap, plenty of internal email chains making fun of Redfin/Zillow/etc.

The house was renovated a bit in 2012 (nothing too fancy), including a new roof, has window unit a/c, gas heat, and includes lake rights to a chain of lakes (although its not right on the water). 

It's a gold mine. 

if i go to auction.com and look at a potential foreclosure, they'll have a list of the title chain, comps, etc. lots of info, for free. i just don't know where to find that at. 

They all think they're sitting on gold mines (and this was in 2013)...and to be honest many of them are...Anyway, I eventually just found the Santa Clarita 4-unit on the MLS.Where direct mail does work in SoCal, however (or at least where it worked for me back in 2015...not sure the market now as I haven't bought anything in SoCal since then), was for older absentee SFR owners in the outskirts of SoCal...I had several people willing to sell me their properties at a deep discount (for cash and a quick close), but I only had the cash to buy one at the time.

A good buyer's agent is an asset that's worth his weight in gold.

@Chris Sukala    So they had you wire the funds, then you are good as gold. 

Had to send my son there (an hour away) to change a lightbulb, even though I asked if they had changed it and to fix the ceiling fan that "just stopped working" because they broke the pull chain.

Not a gold mine but learning and setting up my team. 

At the top of the food chain is your Fannie/Freddie product which basically has the highest standards, but the lowest costs and rates.