They're hard to find cuz they are busy and also because 95% or all contractors go belly up within a couple years!

@Jeremy Brown  good points.. but real estate is so regional.. like in your region  Sacramento Placer county etc.. the agent upon opening escrow would have gotten a preliminary title report back from teh title company within 3 to 5 days.. once that is received it would clearly state at the bottom of the report if anyone other than the title owner had an interest they would need to proof themselves up and sign. so in other parts of the country ( and I find this particularly frustrating) especially attorney closing states.. they will not pull title until way deep into the transactions. ( reason they have to pay an abstractor up front to pull title ) and if the deal fails they don't want to be on the hook for the abstractor fee so you don't find out that you have an issue with title many times very close to closing date and this leads to massive frustrations on the buyers side.. ( at least it has for me in these instances. )But your correct the listing agent probably should have or did know that the seller was married and should have gone down those thought process's.. usually your in the home during the listing signup but i know now with docusign this may not be the case as much as it used to be.. as RE is moving away from much of the belly to belly aspects we enjoyed in the olden days 

You will convince yourself to drink the juice, like all the other people in the class, and the truth is, it may work.

@Nate Bell I appreciate the insight.

Here's a very basic explanation to get your juices flowing:Assume a house costs $200,000 and rents for $1,500.

At some number the "juice is worth the squeeze".Another thought is to reach out to a great property manager and pick their brain.Hope this helps.

Real estate sales is a high stakes, highly emotional, belly-to-belly business.

For the little guy trying to put together one deal at a time, the juice usually isn't worth the squeeze.I'm curious to see how this may differ in other markets though...Further reading:https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2014/11/1...https://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/what-is-a...

All in all, negative experience; although, I did learn a lot and gained a few hundred thousand skymiles :)Overall, as someone who desired a very hands-off approach, I did not find the flip process and its juice to be worth the squeeze.

Originally posted by @Jay Hinrichs: Joe kaiser ring a bell  I took his course, before he had a course, in 2007.