They’re often motivated to sell before construction begins due to noise, traffic, or potential rezoning.

Locate a Motivated Seller that will consider Seller Financing.

You should take advice from experienced people here who have not motivation to lie to you.

Better yet, accept the fact that there are always going to be the poor, and a good number of these people - especially in class-movable societies like the US - are going to be there because they aren't motivated enough to do anything further. 

I'll reach out and see if any would be willing to offer some sort of mentorship. 

You can't go wrong anyway but you want to have some sort of boots on the ground to get you started and understanding the area.

If you or CPA needs a AMA shoot me an email and we’ll get you all sorted.  

We didn't buy much from the MLS and if we did, it was either a "handyman special" or it had been on the market 180+ days with a motivated seller willing to take less than market value.This will be the "new normal" going forward and a lot of newer investors will drop out of the acquisition market and just hold what they have.

Good luck getting this sorted, I hope it’s a smoother process from here on out!

Part of my issue was not having a reasonably priced handyman ahead of time and eventually overpaying to just get it done and also inexperience as a manager.With that said, you essentially have two options: very cheap properties in less good areas (you're looking at 100k or less--which you might have trouble getting a good lender for)  or trying to do some sort of house hack (e.g. live in flip, live in rent by the room, multifamily) where you budget will be closer to 200k-300k.Personally, I would not look at real estate until you are maxing out your 401k and IRA, but lots of folks have done significantly better with real estate than stocks and would think I'm crazy for suggesting this.