I have a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of properties in the process  of being quieted and who knows how many I will get over the next couple years from liens I already purchased that wont redeem.

I am pretty much in this same position literally.

In this time, you should be making thousands of calls, sending out monthly mail pieces, and/or deploying digital marketing efforts to get in front of homeowners.2.

Purchase price: $200,000 Cash invested: $15,000 Sale price: $260,000 Purchased a cosmetic flip, invested about 8k in repairs, and a couple thousand for using a HML, listed on market and received multiple offers all above asking price.

They are based on sending tens of thousands of pieces of mail to get deals. 

Where I am, land is pretty expensive, but the lot I was referring to was literally just a fenced dirt lot. 

You have a lot more control than buying in a market hundreds or thousands of miles away.

Detroit is literally a block by block city and if you are not here to see the property you need boots on the ground that you can rely on to assess any potential purchase.  

Sure, taking a trip cost money, but a few hundred or thousands of dollars is a tiny percentage of a real estate investment.

When houses are selling over ask by 10's of thousands cash and under a week you risk is significantly less.