When you venture into the real estate field, one important thing that you will need is a great team to rely.

@Simon Stahl  go around both of them.. if they can't get their act together.. simply find who owns it and make an offer direct.. unless your a really high volume buyer who is relying on these folks.and also Account Closed  it is illegal in CA to act as a RE agent without a license. the ability to assign contracts is a very narrow one... which most wholesaler simply don't follow so they are violating the laws.. there is a tab on the BRE CA website to report unlicensed activity.  

Then start doing flips, buying notes, tax liens, and more to help increase your capital while the rentals provide a foundation to rely on in case a fix and flip goes bad.By the way if you plan on managing the property yourself, try using a service like cozy.co or something similar.  

Things are always going to be more expensive when you are several states away as you have to rely on paying others to do everything for you.

But unfortunately as a newbie or amateur I guess I have to rely on some input form the pros. 

nice post...I have been there done that.. owned a few airplanes  ( those make cars of any cost look like a pittance) but I used them in business and they were fabulous write offs and very fun to use and it made my business better because of be able to maximize my time and spread my wings so to speak to markets I could never have covered if I had to rely on car or Gasp airlines. 

Individuals that lend money should probably take a finance class on lending, many simply rely on a low LTV and miss good loans, but that's the easy way. :)  

A rough 1% rule would suggest a valuation from 300k (which is near his asking price right now) to around 1mil.It may still be a viable project, especially if there is potential for the area, but I would seriously question how you got to your renovation budget, and more importantly, if the sources that you relied upon that got you to that figure are reliable and capable of taking on this sort of project.

Also, cash is king in hard times where you can use cash at will rather than relying on changing bank standards to gain access to your equity.  

Hard to find homes that would cash flow, mostly breaking even and relying on area to grow but I'm unsure if it'll jump up to Leander/Cedar Park prices anytime soon...