I've done some research and see some suggesting randomly showing up at the house (don't want to do that) or sending a letter/mailer (those things are usually thrown out).

The deal I chose was somewhat at random, but also looking at price points and neighborhood ratings I thought would be good for a first investment.Below is my attempt to break down this deal. 

It is only a numbers game if you are blindly throwing darts in the dark, asking random people if they want to sell .. yes THEN it is a numbers game.

Lenders will use an AMC, and that AMC will select a random appraiser to inspect the property.

I used random numbers, just to illustrate the point.1.

i know this a  hypothetical property but the point that I was making was that if a new investor buys a random $2M property with $1.6M in debt, they will be cash flow negative.

Walking random strangers through a house is not the same thing as acting in the seller's best interest. 

There are so many threads on BP of investors in the northeast or CA who bought a random midwest property because it looked great on paper and got crushed by deferred maintenance.

Random missing pillows. 

If you got this far I hope you enjoyed something in my random mini memoir.Daniel