But Keynes has a great quote that sums up the current madness: "The market can remain irrational longer than you can remain solvent."

I had rekindled my desire to pursue real estate this year and BP has fanned that flame...Im married to an awesome woman and have 4 beautiful children all of which present me with motivation to make some things happen.

In the later case you need to know what liens may remain attached to the property.

So after no real goals with real estate, one of my buddies got me motivated to jump all in.

I am a very motivated individual. 

Hi,I have been interested in real estate for a long time, and this website has great information.I have been driving around and taking note of distressed properties, my next step is I try to find the owners information and call them to see if they are interested in selling.I finally found a very motivated owner that wants to sell, the problem is they are asking over double the market rate for the value of their property. 

When I cold call someone and ask if they are interesting In selling and they say no, but I know that they’re house has been vacant for awhile or the motivation is going to come because of money problems , how do I go about getting a follow up??

We are trying to pull the equity out of the property to help with rehab costs on that specific property and put the remaining into a new investment property.

@J Scott - Thanks - Does that number (%) remain the same when doing a rehab for a buy and hold rental?

So, the benefits you would get from working with a experienced and motivated local agent that has insights to what areas fit your investment goals would be something you would still be missing even if you did get your RE license.