Essentially, what you're doing is offering lumps of cash to the note holder (the guy who's getting paid) so that you are assigned an income stream (payment stream, typically on a monthly basis).Once you do your DD and pay the note seller, an assignment takes place and the note payor is now informed that he or she has to make payments to you, the new note holder.

Craig- figure out what your goals are, what your financial resources are, then you will be able to determine your strategy.For example, if you don't have much cash or credit to work with, wholesale or sub to may be a better option.If you have a large amount of cash and are handy, fix n flip, short sales, auctions, or REOs may be good.Just some quick food for thought.

Now, let's move upthe real estate food chain a bit.

Any lien holder can foreclose if the deed of trust (mortgage in some states) lists a default action and an occurance of that default action has occured.

If you default on your first mortgage, for exsample, the first lien holder may be entitled to receive those rents from the date of default.

Being a note holder on an upside down property where the owner is not paying is not a nice place to be.

If things are slow I will post a flier in local laudromats and fast food restaurants that have public bulletin boards.

You can buy it, but you will need to pay for the contract outside of closing, the lender will not finance the contact, unless the contract holder gets paid as a third party payout.

Either way, people will lose jobs, or what they earn wont buy their food, which will make it a second priority to pay your mortgage as opposed to buying food.

I wanted to get a 80% mortgage with a bank and keep the remainder of the principal as a loan with the private mortgage holder.