Houses are gone instantly (unless they are priced bad or have problems) when they hit the market, everyone is griping that there is nowhere to rent except apartments (and they are right.) .

Also frankly any place fairly close to Waltham will be the most competitive of the whole range you are looking at so, while a good deal will sell instantly, it will be that much harder to find a deal starting out.I think you are on the right track with the Nashua area.  

There are times that I don't replace missing screens in AZ but if a tenant asks for them I do it instantly.

I can see instantly they don't know real estate, they followed the jump right in crowd eager to make money following some guru or simple step by step program and they walk away not knowing anything really, they are stuck in the beginning.

I have looked online for "free instant POF letters", but they do not lend in Nevada.Has anyone else gone through this?

I realize that including the commission may be counter-intuitive financially since I'll now have to pay income tax on that amount, but it does allow me to get some instant cash that I can use to hold in reserves, perform repairs, or start paying down the HELOC I used for the down payment. 

Warning: once you put a request in, be prepared for instant responses!

When people call from one of my postcards I instantly know two things, they have equity (because I targeted people with equity) and they think they are motivated to sell (how motivated is yet to be determined).You are going to end up talking to prospects on the phone one way or the other but I prefer to be talk to someone who has been pre-screened (responders of my postcard).

It takes a long time in the business before you can "instantly" know a great deal, especially because these days they have become harder & harder to find.

Imagine if all the Asian families decided to move out of Cupertino at once, home prices would instantly drop 40-50%.Iand bay area real estate has been expensive even in the 1990' and 2000's.