You also will not be able to see the house and no one should buy sight unseen without a history of doing it.If you are talking about Auction dot com or Xome or Hubzu, those come with a buyer's premium on top of the sale price between 5-10% and often have ghost bidders in the system so you will see it keep getting reset to hit a higher bottom.As a new(er) investor, auctions are where you go to lose money and take on excessive risk.

If you want cashflow.. look for markets with low entry prices and higher rent averages.

Quote from @Chris Seveney: @Jonathan B.On a reverse mortgage no, but if it’s going to foreclosure then it’s typically because it’s upside down / under water or there is no heirs.You could call the attorney and ask if they will let you know what the opening bid or payoff is on the property or do a case search on the county website and see the complaint as that will typically tell you the amount. thanks Chris,the complaint on the 1st mortgage only states the Principal balance due  - 321Kbut i know that once "Final judgement" is issued, its higher - i am just not sure given its a HECM Am i to expceted anything else given its a "Reverse mortgage" ?

All my systems work together so my owning has higher returns the more I expand my co-hosting as I am vertically scaling. 

That being said ( and I will be interested to hear from some of the larger syndication groups ), I have found larger check writers (family offices hedge funds pref equity groups etc) often want some element of control and higher returns for their investment and so perhaps that is why larger operators accept smaller checks too. 

We have a business account with a local bank but we are looking at options that might be better for a real estate investment business as an LLC and that earns a higher yield.  

That said, Solo 401(k) with Roth component can be powerful and does open up the discussion with your CPA or tax pro about paying yourself more (within reason), in order to make higher contributions. 

Should I offer starting at asking price with an escalation clause of $3000 higher than the highest bidder until $480k?

On paper it may not show as much cash flow as some of the lower priced pockets but there's a much higher probability of a safe, reliable resident that will make your return much more consistent and passive over time. 

(These averages represent state-level data, and individual cities may levy additional taxes.)To achieve the same level of cash flow as a property in Nevada, you would need to generate a higher cash flow in Texas to offset the higher operating costs.