You may already have critical mass to get participants to donate (I would certainly kick in)That might give you the upfront funding you need to do this right.

I live 30 minutes north of Boston in historic Salem, Ma (the original witch city).  I am a full time real estate broker targeting the North Shore. My husband, his best friend and I have jumped head first into the flip...

I just finished my cash out refinance for my 4 unit in Mass and I got 100k out.

In any event, the 1031 en masse route is something I have been rolling around in my head for awhile now.

You can't really compete with the people that have been mass mailing using thousands of dollars and many years of followup going towards snatching all the off-market deals in the SoCal markets.

Obviously the size and length of the loan will dictats most of that but still.There's a point where real estate reaches critical mass when you can scale up in number of homes and then let the factor of time catapult you to a much larger profit than you would typically expect.

The mindless consumption of formal education, will keep you on target with the masses.

I understand that investing in areas you are familiar with is usually the safer route to go however living in Portland Maine has restricted me to high housing costs which limit the amount of properties I could finance because of my financial situation (college student).I have talked to 4 professors at my school who have some real estate background and they suggested a couple markets in Mass that would provide lower housing costs and the same amount of renting possibility.  

The problem is the MLS may do a mass notification only several times a week, so, while these entries are just being posted, the notification you or you agent get may be a day old or even more.  

Jonathan Twombly I think that many folks see no immediate returns on their efforts, so the level of effort diminishes over time, and we lose out on the critical mass that is needed to really begin to see the fruits of our labor (and efforts) start to show themselves in marketing and RE investing as a whole...so the point about consistently feeding the machine is a big one.