Now you can barely find a single family home for less than 2 mil.

They simply like to allure customers or potential customers to get their offerings, and then after papers would be signed up - they will do amazed faces and saying that you knew about all the terms and policies, hah.

Being more active on the forums, starting more conversations face to face (or zoom now :P), and being more active and up front with communications

One problem Mass still faces is the lack of supply with reasonable demand.

Most borrowers who are in default face worse ramifications from foreclosure than short sales so it's a lesser evil.

As I said, my brother and I barely know this lady. 

Buy right, do the bare minimum, and get it on the market fast. 40k max.

I recommend high grading your properties to an absolute bare minimum 100k arv areas and to ensure expenses are reasonable 120k arv for single family. 

Here are some of the problems I'm attempting to solve:-Scrubbing lists for active listings/recently sold properties and the DNC registry-Updating lists to reflect market activity-Skip tracing phone numbers-Direct Mail automation-Ability to add leads & lists seamlesslyWhether its a software, CRM, or manual system that you find to be effective, I'd love to hear how the BP community has conquered this problem faced by all scaling RE businesses. 

Generally, your best contacts will come face-to-face at REI events or now, virtually.