@Chris Szepessy sorry to say, I think that is bad advice.You want to take an indirect problem to the landlord and tenant (crime, lower property values, nuisance) and turn it into a DIRECT problem to the landlord by buying the property and trying to evict people who don't care for the law?

They helped me in direct ways that no way this site or a casual post could do.

Ned teased me constantly about buying this lien because he couldn't believe it would actually be worth considering and I tease him back about how he indirectly did help me buy this  particular lien and look, J and I struck gold!!!  

This may have been too much info, but this is a general outline hopefully you found helpful in direct mail marketing!

As someone just getting started, I would recommend mailing to people with 50%+ equity, and then use other criteria that you're looking for (such as minimum 3 bedrooms, an appraised value not higher/lower than $X, etc.).However, the MOST important thing in direct mail is repetition!!

There are two types of operating costs; direct costs and indirect costs.

If you want to pay some bills, buy cash-flows market.You could make a such strategy that you could virtually live for free where all your CA mortgage will be paid by OOS investments (or any indirect CF flow, such as debt funds or even REIT)It's extremely even more important if you have family and serious about generational wealth transfer.

Seller was in direct contact with her and there were liens stated in the house.

I think they are forcing me indirectly to get into a month-to-month situation?

By raising or lowering short-term interest rates, monetary policy affects the housing market, and in turn the overall economy, directly or indirectly through the effects of interest rates on 1) the user cost of capital, 2) expectations of future house-price movements, 3) housing supply, 4) standard wealth effects from house prices, 5) balance sheet, credit-channel effects on consumer spending, and 6) balance sheet, credit-channel effects on housing demand.If a bear market emerges, then we should expect home devaluation nationally of 20% to 30% or more in markets overvalued relative to wages and rents.