I would get started on looking for a new place or talking to the purchaser at the sheriff's sale (probably the bank) about renting after the foreclosure is completed.

Congrats on looking into property in Malibu.

After reading it I plan on looking more seriously at making my dollar stretch farther.

Great job on looking at your exit strategies.  

That is why I have started to care less about the cash flow numbers and instead look at whatever positive cash flow I come up with in my calculations as "buffer" while my hope is to rely more on mortgage pay down and hopefully (and I know some people will cringe - sorry) rent appreciation over time.That change in thinking makes a lot of the properties quite a bit more attractive, although it is admittedly a less conservative approach.Just keep on looking, you never know when the a good opportunity is going to appear in front of you so you always have be looking ahead and be ready to move when you see an opening.

I find that some of the analysis that I read on looking at spreadsheets and other financial considerations to be a bit overwhelming at times as I am not very knowledgeable as to the intricacies of financial analysis.

If it doesn't keep on looking.

If you wan to do buy & hold (which is the only thing I'm qualified to talk about) your action plan will look something like this:Get a basic education and realization of the struggles of real estate (you wont get rich off of one property or over night)Set goals and ask for help in determining what steps to take to get there figure out your financing optionsDetermine a niche and purchasing criteria based on looking at a LOT of houses.

What areas of Indianapolis do you plan on looking?

I am not sure where I should be posting this, so I put it here.  Sorry if it is not in the best category. We had some roof work done about 4 years back, putting a peaked roof over a flat roof (flat roof leaked, we had...