Focus on absentee owners and start with the ones who live the farthest away and only own one property in the area since they have the least use for the property.You can also drive for dollars, looking for anomalies of disrepair and then look them up in the tax records and use a site like Spokeo to do cheap skip tracing.

As you mentioned intentional flips are typically considered inventory-This means the income is ordinary income and as such: - Is not a capital gain, so hold time of 1 year does not change to a better long-term capital gain rate - Can not be invested in a QOF Deductions related to it can't be pushed or changed- all costs are accounted for with the inventory component 

All the best 

I'll be scoping out properties all over the country but definitely in Oeiras as well - i am eyeing one there right now.

That's one decent flip (or two). 

Or you can look at transactional funding, but you'd likely spend more on marketing as the need for double closings are less than fix and flip deals.Again, all the best to you on your journey!

You can find something in Durham and parts of Raleigh, specifically zips 27610, 27603, and parts of 27604 that would meet your criteria, however generally speaking most of the inventory that would fit what you are looking for in Raleigh or Durham would likely be in neighborhoods that I personally wouldn't want to invest in, C- to D type neighborhoods.

It feels good to have all that depreciation from a cost seg. 

One of the best ways(not the most exciting) is cold calling owners.

I've sold several homes in this area for my real estate clients too, and they've all been happy up here.