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. 

For furnishing short- or mid-term rentals, finding the right balance between stuff that looks good, but which also offers solid durability and keeps your budget in check can be difficult.If your budget is your driving factor with your design decisions, I'd start surfing on Google image search or Pinterest - find a picture of a finished room that you like, and then reverse engineer it from products on Amazon and other similar budget-friendly sources.

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.