This makes if more difficult for small businesses to compete with large corporations and it was by design (or incompetency).

Max, I appreciate the recommendation, but the primary reason I am asking such a question in this forum is to avoid the costs associated with seeking proffesional advice and instead seeking recommendations of experienced inviduals who probably sought such advice themselves.When I goto actually set everything up I will seek the advice of a CPA and have a competent attorney draw everything up, but I want to avoid as much of that cost as possible by being well educated prior to seeking such proffesional (and expensive) services.

REO's and short sales you have to double close, so those are a different category.The bottom line being that if you are wholesaling in Indiana, you need to seek competent legal advice about doing assignments solely because of this specific case.Also I talked with the Indiana Attorney General's Office and they wouldn't give me any straight answers on the issue (which I kind of expected) but they did send me over the official complaint, judgment, and punishment.

I would hire a competent (or licensed) home inspector.

The houses in the neighborhood are selling from around $20,000 (greatly distressed) to $85,000 (well maintained)....I recently came across a house listed at $14,000 which needed about $18,000 worth of work to meet market standards...I was very interested in this property because my realtor said it could likely sell for around $45k after improvements....Unfortunately another investor had a pending offer on the property within 7 days of being listed...There are 4 other houses right in that area of the house that are highly distressed and abandoned...is there a way that I can contact these owners to buy the house before it goes out to market...this way I won't have to compete with other investors....I can find the owner information in the public records, but where do I go from there?

And from that could I assume that a competent individual (hopefully that includes me lol) with due care should expect to be able to run almost any complex at the 50% rule?

No matter how much you target or would prefer a "retail" buyer, the reality is that you are competing with those other distressed properties when you sell.You need to use those low sales because they are reality and simply try to buy lower.If you are lucky and get a retail buyer for your flip, it is a home run.

Please PM me if you have a good lead on a reasonable, competent and licensed rehab person/team.

Hiring help is expensive, and it actually uses your time finding competent help and dealing with them (not to mention the loss that happens when you don't CYA and get some idiot).

Value should be based on an IRR calculation and the project should compete with other projects for the investment dollars giving your cash constraints.Value and how the property is valued by lenders are two different things.