More difficult than it once was but there are still deals out there.

I had also cash offers but way below asking price, it is very difficult to financing, the home has to be retrofitted, and the buyer needs to pay an engineer's report, we  had to switch lenders because the first lender even tough we got value with the FHA appraisal, lender decided it didn't worth the contracted price.

Those can be really difficult.

If difficult to find out what was paid for the property (not listed in the deed and sales history of assessor's site), divide the excise tax paid (which will be stamped on the deed) by the % the the town/city charges.  

If you're marketing directly to homeowners, it would be a lot more difficult.

Pick an area to invest: I would prefer Santa Monica/LA area, but I think it will be difficult to get the 10-15% COC returns I’m looking for.3.

They take up a lot of space and are difficult to fit in a standard file cabinet (since they're legal sized).Is there any reason at all to keep the paper copy of the HUD if you have a pdf copy?

But agents get some super easy deals and some very difficult deals (and some deals that don't pay out at all).

Then again, the process to become a Realtor is not that difficult, thus why you have some many who do not know so much.

However, managing them from a far will be much more difficult than a commercial 5-10 unit property of the same value.