Go to the real estate investors group in Little Rock and make some friends. 

I'm currently based in Little Rock and Laramie Wyoming, but my target markets are flexible.

This site rocks!

There are also many that work for a living for someone else and live like rock stars.  

Hi,Looking at the property is most important. if you tell her you can just drive by or look inside to determine if you will make a full offer or if she will have to bring money to the table she may help out more.When you get the address you might be able to google it and at least see the outside and the neighborhood the street view.Short sales take a lot of time and red tape, it has to be approved and the seller will have to prove she can no longer make the normal payments.If that is the case the mortgage holder is looking for a magic number, I have done a few of these.What else is going on with this deal?

You'd better be prepared to work on the mindset a lot because it can be a frustrating business when the good leads dry up for a while.Suggest you learn to get comfortable with for knocking and calling people and be prepared to turn over a lot of rocks and kiss a lot of frogs before finding deals.

Using invitation style envelopes, red handwriting, and first class postage will all help your open rate but I think if you want to get more quality leads it's going to be in the message of the letter.For example, the standard "Hello, My name is Justin and I want to BUY your house at Address." letter will get you a lot of calls.

The most important thing as an investor I believe is to make sure when you do your due diligence on a property you plan to buy or put under contract you take a look at the folder the building inspector has on that address down town at the courthouse... to make sure there isnt or was not a red tag on the issue of lead based paint abatement or poisoning that may have occurred at that address.

Save your money in a rock solid insured CD4.

My wife and I started Solid Rock Houses a year and a half ago.