I work as an IT consultant, and I'm looking to get into real estate as my main source of income.

Either on the weekends when it is busy or on the weekdays when the main person has days off or both. 

Main takeaways are: 1) it is not that simple as moving back into the property.

There is a big shortage of affordable single houses in this current market and more and more millennials are turning renting (due to low wages and mainly because they saw their parents suffer the 2007 crash which hit FL specially hard)If you have a rental property you'll always have occupied, plus, using the FHA loan bears less risk and maybe no work assessment.

I am currently using Redfin and realtor.com as my main resource but am struggling, mainly because I don’t see any comps on those sites.

As many investors have echoed - NYC is a very expensive marketYou have the following options1) Investing in NYC - require large capital and a good choice if you are banking on appreciation in the future.2) Invest in upstate NY or CT/MA/PA/NJ3) Invest through a turnkey property4) Househack(may be difficult in NYC but doable in parts of NJHave you looked into attending any local real estate events in NYC? 

The main reason why I’m asking is to determine the best method to value the deal.

The main benefit of short sale houses is they are in a good condition due to the homeowner still lives there.

Also, there seem to be a lot of UK people buying in the US (mainly Florida).

Looks like I don't have a choice anyway - called a removal company and they said if it's higher than 13 ft, most companies won't touch it.