Zillow, Trulia, and other are trying to provide knowledge to both buyers and sellers and to provide a marketplace for doing transactions directly.Realize too that like many other industries there are entrenched players that don't want this to happen.

This information is good when you want to know who the big players are.

This is a project that will take millions of $$ to complete, & hopefully all of the prime players will make a million or two...........

The market doesn't have time for pretenders because to many real players are in the marketplace.Show me you have the cash directly and show me you are willing to put it on the line to get the deal.

Sales don't have to be "high pressure" generally the high pressure guys are the  mediocre C players...at best.

They are happy for more passive investments.Engineers, Doctors, business owners, professional sports players, etc. are just a few of my clients.I personally have zero interest in house flipping or residential.

Like all things in this bizz there are the good the bad and the ugly players out there.And with Sellers dealing direct without representation IE a broker or Attorney they can easily be led astray by a very good salesmen..

In the end, that's exactly what happened...in the big money game there are players with a very low cost of capital and a high level of access to capital that can execute quickly and with much higher valuation than you or I would ever consider--and the banks know that.If you intend to carve this thing up you are at an even greater disadvantage because you could even be the high bidder and lose to one of these big-money groups who is taking the whole tape with a 10 day all-cash close.These deals are so attractive because everyone wants to find that one deal that you can retire off of, but it's a mirage.  

LOL, yeah, these guys are real players in the local real estate scene.  

Generally speaking any state that uses Trust Deeds  with the power of sale .. is much safer to lend in vis a vi a default .. then a state that uses Mortgages and Sherrifs sales or court confirmations.. those can take a long time and COST a bunch.For instance in Mississippi I can foreclose start to finish in less than 90 days for under 1,200 dollars.if I want a judgement against the borrower as well.. ( called dual action ) and done in Texas a bunch that's another 1,500. on top of it as you need to go to court to get the judgement.however loans to KNown players who are very good at what they do. and yes it can be quite passive there are many deals I do that I don't work more than 15 minutes on.. and will make 10s of thousands in points and interest.there are deals I have done that took 15 minutes and I lost 10S of thousands.. its all about your borrower and your collateral.