My thoughts were that I needed a structured environment and a piece of paper to let me know that I had acquired a skillset.

My initial motivation stems from the dream of being an entrepreneur who works for themselves and schedules their own life, not an employee but an EMPLOYER.HOWEVER, hard work gets everyone tired and with fatigue and exhaustion we all lose a piece of that motivation, what keeps me going is surrounding myself with other investors, seeing people of all different walks of life come into this industry and creating success, makes me think, why not me?

Im familiar with Nimius, In fact I met the owner of the company a few weeks ago at a local meetup and a lot of people I trust would recommend them, so I think this might be a case of "you cant get blood from a stone" Th best piece of advice I can give for both of you would be to check out some of the local REI groups.

The crash coarse would be to read:- BRRRR by @David Greene- Long Distance Real Estate Investing by @David Greene- The Book on Estimating Rehab Costs by @J Scott- How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie (Important for that Networking Piece) - What Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know about Cash Flow ... by Frank Gallinelli (To bolster your knowledge of running the numbers) If you want to go a little deeper, I love the CPA advice on BRRRR from @Brandon Hall.Listen to Podcast 327.

As an example, you could just right on a piece of paper that you are selling a piece of property to a buyer. 

But if direct mail is the way to go...what is a good 'rule of thumb' for the minimum amount or DM pieces that should go out monthly?

Hi BP,I've been brainstorming ideas for low-budget and creative direct mail pieces (I have already sent 3 rounds of postcards to absentee owners, but I think it's time to change it up a bit).  

As mentioned above the ADU play is very big right now as the city has done some big things as far as ADU allowance and ease when it comes to the permitting and planning piece of that but you are pretty spot on, this is why unless a crazy deal comes my way (off market will be the only way to make that happen) I am sticking to flipping locally and rolling those profits into buy and hold properties out of state.

Luckily, I always have an open ear, but am not easily influenced by tenant sob stories.

The reason why they want to give it for free... and I am not there so I am not sure... is because of the same thing most people say when we give an offer lower than they want to hear "The land alone is worth more than that".Yeah you Oompaloompa,  sure, but tearing and demoing the house costs 30K BEFORE I will have a piece of land I can do anything constructive with.There are a lot of issues other than just  a free house...But, hey, maybe they really are just done with it.