Many people who I hear on the podcast or read articles on are very familiar with the areas they're buying rentals in as they more than likely live in the area.Unfortunately for me, I live abroad at the moment - though originally from Seattle.  

Can't think of anyone in particular on BP at the moment.

Not really in "the trenches" at the moment, but I will say that their seems to be a lot of multi-family projects under construction.

The memorandum (some use a letter of intent) approach is considered a "soft lease option" because the memorandum is generally a non-exclusive agreement that gives the seller the ability to walk away at any time if they choose to do so (even once you've spent all your time and energy finding a buyer and the seller decides to walk away at the last minute), but also gives you the ability to gain an assignable interest via the memorandum in a way that feels less scary to a seller (and generally you can structure the terms of the memorandum to have the rental payments begin the moment you assign, so you don't have to make payments while you're trying to find someone to assign to).You can also gain an assignable interest through a "hard lease option" that is exclusive between you and the seller, and will usually require you to start making payments at a specified date.

I'm a recent college graduate with minimal cash on hand for the moment. 

Between myself and the 7-8 employees we have any any given moment, it's very easy for us to get 10-20 transactions per day.

At the moment I would like to learn under and investor that flips property before purchasing more of my own.

I'm a Denver area GC doing primarily scrapes at the moment.

Our prices are creeping up and the inventory is very low at the moment, so great deals are hard to come by, but the market is definitely there.

You have a much better chance of connecting with an owner if you are persistent rather then doing mass mailings hoping to hit that one owner who is ready to sell at the exact moment they received your post card.