Deadbolts are much harder to pick (still doable but not by your average copper thief).In the future, for long-empty jobs in bad neighborhoods - I've had the electrician run a low voltage connection to the main copper lines.

If you are working with 100k+ homes this is doable.

It's a slog finding deals around here but it is doable. 

Please reply with your input on "do-able" areas in Austin and other general thoughts.  

Ali Dawood Completely doable.

the #1 thing that i have learned about real estate is that pretty much everyone you deal with is going to be hilariously greedy. this isnt my experience 100% of the time, but it is like that 99% of the time.i dont know about you, but seeing a property that is reasonably valued at $120,000 listed for $205,000 is outright ridiculous to me. all that tells me is that the owner is not in a desperate situation. most deals can only be had when the seller is downright desperate from my experience.in terms of deals ive seen hat are good in florida - i have seen absolutely zero since then EXCEPT maybe one, which was in a slightly remote location. the name of the motel is the Tangerine Inn (find it on google) in Volusian county here in florida, and i believe its a 12 unit foreclosure a few years ago that was listed for $160,000. the low price piqued my interest, and upon inspection, i saw that it was actually a doable deal, but only average. there wasnt a lot of competition nearby, but the place was very old looking and outdated. it required about $90,000 to fully renovate, and maybe $40,000 to get a few rooms up and running at first.a few weeks ago, i checked the volusia county property appraiser and saw that it sold for $60,000 in 2014 which was not bad at all. i called them and they charged a ridiculously high $80 a night for a crappy room. my guess is that they average only about a 35% occupancy rate whereas i have about a 90% i maintain throughout the whole year.besides that, every pther motel deal ive found online through sites such as loopnet were hilariously bad. $600,000 for a 10 unit motel. $950,000 for a 13 unit motel in clearwater beach.i will add more to this soon

Karen, thank you for helping me get up to speed.  24 months is doable if an alternative can't be found.Tim, that would be a bad deal wouldn't it! 

On line it is doable taking about 4 days though.

You can buy a duplex forexample, or take control of a property and flip it.Not easy, but do-able.

Putting it all together in a package that is doable is the hard part.