Ask for historical income and expense records before jumping into the deal.

If you did a double close then whatever your purchase price was, is your purchase price on record.

Yeah, I know there are organizations that promote the idea "your home is your biggest investment".

Since the leads are all organic, it's pretty hard to beat.

Will the lease/option be recorded as public record?

A bird dog I know was also getting some heat from a wholesaler for sending him the addresses of each house with unmowed grass - as thats not a sufficient lead.After selecting a property, I look to see if it has sufficient equity and then mail to the owner of record, whether it owner-occ or abssentee owned.

If it is REO the banks will auction it, if it is not the law states its still owned by the owner of record. its like a maze and really hard to get anyone to speak to. if the bank dont own it they cant sell it, if the owner wont co operate with the bank in shortsale they cant sell it. so either way you spend a lot of time and get no where.

if you r looking specifically for tax lien properties there is no one website that lists properties that have liens against them. this is actually how i invest. you need to contact the tax collector for the town you want to research liens in. you need to get the most recent tax sale list or upcoming list if its i the future. if the sale has passed you need to have them give you the results of the sale. which properties did have liens placed against them. if its a future sale, i would plan on attending it. you can buy some liens yourself if you would like. however, at the very least go there to record which liens were placed. once i have my list, i check with tax collector to see if there are older liens on a property. e. g. if you have the tax sale list for 2012 i'll ask if there are any liens prior to 2012. you do this so that properties that are coming close to the foreclosure date, you can heavily market to. these owners will be more likely motivated b/c they are close to losing their property to foreclosure. back to websites, most tax collector offices will either mail/email you sale list. also a lot of times, they are posted on regional paper (ac press, ap press, etc). occassionally, you will get lucky and they'll post the tax sale list right on the townships website. hope this helps. sorry for length.as far as foreclosed properties, you can just google foreclosure lists, and im sure you will find some. most of the ones i have seen require a monthly fee. you could also use a realtor, zillow, trulia, or other listing sites usually post foreclosures.

I think that goes against the thesis of limiting volatility exposure because record low interest rates are certain to rise at some point, and with such a small interest/cap rate spread already, cap rates will get pushed up which pushes prices down.

I'll take a crack at it anyway1) Find who owns the property, often property records are online.