I know what works because besides the millions of pieces of mail I send for investors and agents I too use my service and I absolutely would only send out Postcards or only send out YellowLetters etc. if doing so allowed me a higher return however I know that doing so would diminish my return.

When someone sends too many emails, whatever little trust I once had is considerably diminished - and that's putting it mildly.

And I see huge motivation from someone who has owned a home 30 plus years. 1) They have out grown the home2) They have deferred maintenance and a physical inability to maintain. 3) Typically the neighborhood and infrastructure has diminished to an uncomfortable level.4) Typically the owner is now either single due to divorce or death of the spouse5) The asset doesn’t represent the same value as it did when the owner originally purchased it from a savings standpoint6) They are very easy to convert into low or no interest seller financing.7) They are typically unaware of values.

If the landlord pays and rents don't outpace rising utility cost your returns will diminish after expenses.If you meter it all out so that the tenant pays you will have to bear that cost.good luck

After that the law of diminishing returns hits hard.

Once you get an idea of what type of RE investment suits your needs (ie. financial standing, time constraints, risk tolerance, etc.) then the amount of information you need to sift through and absorb will be greatly diminished.

Initially I can see the negative of costing the seller 3% of what they would accept, which may diminish their acceptable amount out of range.

Did the Seller really diminish the risk?  

As we could imagine, the recovery amounts will diminish and time will likely extend to recover that diminished amount.

The impact of the exit capitalization rate also diminishes if one holds the project for an extended period of time.Investing has more to do with instincts and one's ability to create value than it does with precisely calibrating exit capitalization rates and/or any of the other interim cash flows.