Just look for cities that have had flat or falling populations.

Contractors (such as they are) are just CHEAP in some areas.Got a friend that just bought a 3 flat for next to nothing in Indiana, and another investor that just got hold of a $1.6MM multi-family property (valued at $1.6)-- 100% owner financed and the positive cash-flow is a little over $9K per month.Another guy is buying all over the place- not meth labs, either- for $5,500 ; $8,000 and getting crazy prices- rehabbing them for $3,000 to $15,000 and getting $30K and up.

Anyway, back to my point.......I just flat got rejected on about half of my offers, half became counter offer situations, and I even had one REO I was trying to purchase and surprisingly the bank went back and forth with me for 5 counter offer sessions.

Since just about every seller is completely unfamiliar with real estate, and their agent isn't really offering them any advice save lowering the sale price and having lots of open houses with pies baking in the oven (not a terrible idea in and of itself- just not helpful by itself in this market) it's up to YOU to help.What kind of response to you think you could get if you ran a simple ad that read: Sell Your House As-Is for a Fair Price on the Date of Your Choice?

By 'share the profit' I mean pay a fee based on the deal closing rather than just buying a list of names for a flat fee.

Just tar the hell out of the flashing.We have flat roofs here on the backs of homes like little living rooms.

Even in our flat market the prices of the houses that are selling is higher every quarter.

The key advantage is that the seller is typically only paying half of the “standard” listing fee plus the flat fee, which is around $500.00.

He immediately rushes to the electronics store to buy that flat screen TV he doesn’t need, but hey, it’s found money.

So, at best, prices are going to be flat until the long term trend catches up to the current prices.