The reality is that:1) insurance is your primary line of defence2) You would need to be extremely irresponsible to warrant a suite (or make yourself a target).3) lawyers can/will pierce the vail of a LLC  

@Patrick Daniel i actually did get one of those market analysis and it was quite impressive but honestly found it useless. not enough to warrant my time to go through. basically i found a property i liked, received the market analysis of comps in the same area with identical features and all that stuff and basically was 50+ pages. i already knew going in where i had to be at, but it was interesting to see that comprehensive report.....not familiar with a buyer's list but will do some research on that. i think with me being new and having specific criteria (e.g., no complete rehab), thought mls was the best route. interesting. 1 out of every 95-100 offers...interesting stat. 2 rejected offers on the same property, so a long way to go haha. it's very tiring to look at so many properties only to find maybe 1 that falls in your criteria and then only to get rejected. the waterfall of looking at properties to getting an offer accepted is demotivating when i take a step back and look at that conversion rate (i'm a digital marketer full time so i look at it from that perspective). thanks for the responses!

Can it be done without their service, is it an efficient and effective method to collect data "real time" in one place with enough value to warrant the monthly fee?

The other thing is, they are non warrantable.

Fannie, for instance, won't buy anything over 90% in fully WARRANTABLE projects.your best best is more cash down.

Sure, we all want to invest in RE, we allwant to make money(somehow), and we all want to build wealth, but those are vaque objectives.I am still in the "convoluted" stage myself, but between spending time here, researching on the `net, reading, learning, asking questions, observing what others do, seeing what works and what doesn`t, doingsome soul-searching and self-evaluation as to my present circumstances, finances, abilities, knowledge(and acknowledging the lack thereof when warranted, which is often :lol: ), my own personal goals in RE are changing(from just a few months ago), and slowly becoming clearer and more well-defined.

In all seriousness, I'm not sure that fear is warranted, but caution and vigilance certainly is.

If the situation warrants, I make an offer through a letter of intent, which spells out the low price I am offering, and maybe an option for a slightly higher price but with great terms (or both a low price and terms :lol: ) Good luck, Mike

For example, many homes to the untrained eye appear to be in bad shape and can warrant deep discounts when in actually they are only cosmetic repairs that can be fixed for a fraction of the cost.

Most can be done by a handyman.Those include simple items to a few warranted items, and more costly, such as some cabinet repair, some exterior rear door jamb/framing repair, and including my not warranted thermal windows with condensation.