Best thing to do in those situations is to do your homework and generate your own numbers.

2- Strategy to use to buy the property to pay it off, using cash and credit, or bother, as soon as possible and generate a positive cash flow?

Interest rates are low by historical standards, and we have had a whole generation of people remain as renters (delay household formation) for much longer than similar age-group people have done in the past.

I'm looking to acquire more multis in Chicago to buy and hold for cash flow, but need to generate more cash to do another deal (or wait and save for like 3-4 years, but "ain't nobody got time for that!").

@Ali Boone Thanks for the advice, I've actually been reading your blog posts, since your turnkey strategy appeals to me - as long as it still generates a profit (that was me sending you that email about choosing markets).

My mini-blinds at home do not break, If the tenant breaks them they have two options:they purchase and replace themthey are paying me to purchase and replace ($10 + 25 labor), This is income generating.

I am about to secure private lending for a downpayment on a Single Family home that will generate positive cash flow.The loan will be $35K @ 5% for 5 years.

How many cards did you send out, and how many leads did it generate?

First its all in teh list and the more targeted the list the better the results.So a list that targets all home owners is going to not do as well as a list that might target something specific like:Out of State Owners - where you might get people who have moved away or inherited a house they don't want or burned out landlordsUnpaid Taxes - where people are in financial difficulty and going to loose their house to unpaid taxesOwned for a Long Time - where the people might own free and clear orHigh Equity Owners - again free and clearOr even other lists that you might build yourself -Expired MLS LIstings - people who want to sell but did notNOD - people who are have received a notice of defaultLate Pays - people late on their mortgageGarage & Estate Sales - people moving out of their houseAs for a good letter, I have recently used a yellow letter company for a simple I want to buy your house and they make a "handwritten" letter on legal pad paper, fold it weird to put in a thank you card size envelope, with a "handwritten" address, and grandmaesque return address label.It gets opened more, but we do get a lot of calls with people saying they don't want to sell or that we should say we are a company.We tested the straight Dear Mr Jones, we want to buy your house at 123 mainstreet with out our company name or website, just to call us . . that generated more calls than the letter that just went out that added in that we are an investment company and they can call or visit our website . . . can't tell if the results were much different.And personally, you can get all kinds of results, but it comes down to it, you want the motivated people to call you and those people are going to find you letter or not - if you have a website.

Ok say for example, the marketing that I have done has paid off and I generate some leads and get some calls coming in.