You can also get on someplace like Crowd Street were you might see 2-3 a week that interest you.See if they have meetups in your area and go to those.See if they attend any of the regional or nationwide conferences and attend those.DO your due diligence on the principals....check criminal records, see how many full cycle deals they've done, talk to the people on their team like lenders and lawyers.   

@Tracy Graham Prices are regional , since you dont say where you are located , that price could be low , or that price could be high .

I too would like to stay in this region. 

Hi Ryan, we'd be glad to help, we manage throughout the capital region and work with several BP members, and we publish all our pricing right on our website, I'll PM you.

Where you are going to want to focus your attention is on the leads/skiptracing facets.  1st, unique and proprietary lead sources are hard to come by and expensive. 

Is this a unique tax that's only applicable when using an ira as the down payment?

The situation you describe is not unique to this area.  

Hey BP members,I'm a newbie investor looking to get started in the Albany Area/Capital Region of New York State.I currently live in a small town in Albany County that isn't really conducive to Buy and Hold Investing (houses that have been listed have been on the market for 100-300 days/not much job growth or attraction in the town).I was looking for an area in the Capital Region that would have solid job growth/diversification and get a good ROI.Any help would be appreciated.

As you can see, most areas are void of these low priced houses but there is an obvious concentration in the south Akron region, which happens to be one of the roughest areas.- Art 

You can always refi anytime and pay off the balloon to the seller.A local or regional commercial bank or commercial mortgage lender will be your best bet to refinance the sellers note.