Then I really settled in and started picking up some solid money makers - especially the last 2 or 3 years.Things are a little tougher now but I've been putting money into the deals lately to keep my cash flow numbers up and make the LTV's work to that magic 65 to 70%.6+ years later and I have 19 rental properties.

@William Shaffer If a house is Vacant AND DISTRESSED there is a significant increase in motivation you just have to make sure you get some type of correspondence to the person in charge of making a decision on that house.If you have an LLC set up you can register with high level skip tracing services like TLO, Microbilt, or Accurint, and track the owners or decision holders down.Barring special circumstances, having 500 LEGITIMATE Vacant and Distressed properties per month, with the correct decision makers contact info, I believe you should be able to get a deal...following the 4-6 multi touch rule.

At this point, I know that it has been rehabbed to the extent of indoor/ outdoor paint and refinished hardwood floors (not much, I know).

As a business owner trying to make real estate investing as passive as possible (though I know it cant be 100% passive) - I dont see myself getting my real estate license.

So instead of looking for leads via the probate office, I instead researched homeowners who have passed away and verified their address with the county tax assessors website.Essentially my question is which method is going to be more effective: mailing marketing letters to the deceased's property and hope this gets forwarded to the heirs or decision makers in the process, or figuring out if the deceased has any children and mail marketing letters to these people (assuming I can find their address and that they are in fact the heirs).

If you do arrange a special time for someone suggest they bring all roommates/decision makers.

You make offers based on them being money makers for you, regardless of whether it is REO, short sale, courthouse auction, FSBO, etc.

That way you are the decision maker and not him.

We have in Germany a homage to Google Streetview, the new Google Indoors comes.

The buyers in your market are the decision makers on how much rehab you need to do.