Buy 2-3 single family/condos at 80% to value in the 100k range, put some work into for instant equity and rent out at about 500 net profit a month.

Some people hang up on me on the phone maybe because they instantly knew I was a foreigner.  

As far as how to know you are getting a great deal on the MLS, the question is more do you know enough about your market to know a deal instantly?

By time the next day rolls around (usually 5-6 hours from the new listening being posted during the middle of the night or early morning 11pm-3am) the agents at the time I was working with would inform me the property has been spoken for already by a cash buyer without the chance of me getting to see the property or even hearing back from my realtor in time before these instant offers are placed.

That being said if you need to get an MLS search done you can have an agent set it up to come to you daily, hourly, or nearly instantly.  

Values could rise or fall tremendously in an instant  so there is no standard here.  

I can only speak for residential, but if you just want to do a rate/term refinance out of hard money to lower the rate and payment, there is no wait and you can do it instantly. 

In that case you have an instant 100% return.

The donor sells the home to the borrower for less than the home's fair market value, giving the borrower instant equity.

I don't think building an in law quarter will return too much because of high cost of construction- and I think you're exposing yourself to a good amount of risk by doing so because project cost usually runs high, and by the time you're finished the market may be softening creating an instant equity void.