As a result, many investors (including myself) are either spending a very small premium for way fewer headaches in other markets or moving farther afield to more promising opportunities. 

If it appraises for $550,000 that results in monthly payment of about $4,000 including property taxes on a 30 year fixed.

They probably had to come up with money to cover a lien claim or such, resulting in the charge. 

You all need to go after motivated sellers, not just off-market sellers.FSBO are all about offmarket, but most of the time FSBO want market value.So to answer your question, and to be more helpful and of value than you think...here is what you need to do.Distinguish off market sellers, from motivated off market sellers, because this distinction in your marketing efforts will make ALL the difference when it comes to  results.Then reverse engineer your strategy based on the behavior and distinction of those motivated off market sellers.So if you understand what I am saying here... your question about "templates" is wrong.It is not about where do you find templates for off-market deals... your question should be, where do you find  motivated seller off market deals... because when you know where they are.. you don't need no stinking templates.You just need to explain how the process works and the result...well:If I had a mic, I would drop it right about now.Good luck my handsome feller!

@Noam KorenThe historic northeast is like any C area, with good PM you can have great cash flow and with bad PM you can have very bad results (trashed units, non-paying tenants, evictions).

Now if you're trying to leverage time and save money, I would pull a list in the areas you're looking for cash flow and dedicate an amount of time every day for the next 60-90 days to start building relationships with these sellers.You should start seeing an influx of "unmotivated" sellers wanting to sell in after just 1 month of results.

Verifying last 2 years of rental history and income extremely important to find the “best of the worst”.Make sure you understand the Class of properties you are looking at and the corresponding results to expect.The City of Detroit has 183 Neighborhoods we’ve analyzed.PM us if you’d like to discuss this logical approach in greater detail!

- Could the seller be trying to hide potential major issues in the house by leaving no room for inspection results or could it be just ensuring not to disturb the tenant?

This is distinct from the BiggerPockets professionally produced blog content. 

It’s usually the individuals with the highest character who get burnt the worst because they are the ones willing to put themselves in uncomfortable situations to do right by their partners and as a result believe others should operate the same way.