That's no guarantee that a great deal exists on the MLS in your geo *today* but you'll start to figure out pretty quick what seems oddly low priced/high priced for an area.Great point regarding stale listings ... that is actually how I got a great deal on my primary residence.

Take a HELOC out on my primary residence - it had appraised for $235,000.

If you can purchase  a multi unit residence with an occupancy rate of 75% or less (as an example) and reposition the property by removing problem tenants and replacing them with quality tenants,  upgrading the property strategically, increase the occupancy rate to 95% and increase the rents to fair market value or better, then you have a gold mine!  

Remember New Orleans had a mandatory evacuation with a large number of residents coming to Houston who just decided it wasn't worth the effort to go back.

For investing you should mainly look at multi, as you have to live at the residence in order to use the VA loan.

@Dave Lloyd is the expert in our family--we have always sold our personal residences "by owner" with no problem.  

I have a normal homeowners policy for my residence. 

We have an agent friend looking into it now.The 415 annually we'll have to pay on our personal residence makes sense though:  $200,000 in RC with $80,000 contents.

Primary residence?

I've had a client purchase multiple properties by securing a business line of credit against their personal residence (which was free and clear) and use that as the downpayment for several rental properties.