Kim Tucker very interesting, you definitely talked out a wide broad of strategies in wholesaling.

With a question so broad my suggestion would be to spend some time doing a lot of home work, interview others who are doing it and then come back here for answers to specific questions.

This in addition to minimizing risk for a client by not having single points of failure also helps in assembling a menu of best of breed providers across the spectrum. 

This is a pretty big, technologically challenging project that has many components: what databases will you be accessing; your team would need to include developers (the software kind), RE people… You should design you project such that is narrow and focused rather than broad and shallow. 

The passive vs. active discussion is much more of a spectrum than it is a dichotomy.

You can and should also check sites like datausa and bestplaces but this only gives you a broad, macro look at a market.

Once I found a friend of mine who was a designer/GC that could eyeball photos to give a broad estimate, I felt confident sending out offers more quickly. 

I've been doing my share of research and i know this may be a question that is too broad, but here it goes...I've been looking at some properties in Waterbury, CT and I'd like to know if there's anyone out there who's currently investing in Waterbury.

This is a very broad question that should be discussed on the phone with an expert.

This would be a bit of a broad topic, but I wanted to see if I could get some generalized ideas.