Bridget, @Anson Young hosted an great Podcast that touched on wholesaling strategies:http://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/09/05/virtual-investing-deals-heated-market-anson-young/In addition, there is a local REI meetup group that you can hit up for expanding your network and getting information regarding "bird dogging" techniques and general Denver market analysis and current events.

It has both elements.

Does each place have it's own heat and own hot water heater?

FIND WHERE YOUR BUYERS ARE BUYING. 1.Pick a county you are interested in targeting. 2.Google "xxxxx county heat map" and select the search result from trulia.com to view the map of the county you want to target.

Oil heat. 1 car garage built 1994.

Do I put up a nice wooden covered deck with screens ( no window glazing allowed or I have to build it to code as living space, electric heat etc) or finish bsmt where there are a lot more permit hurdles and costs to jump through.

Tenants will pay their own electricity and gas however based on the set-up of the house, the heat is typically paid by the landlord (me!).

My brother and I ended up with a not insignificant inheritance (though not the kind to quit your day job on or anything) so I decided to shift away from a heating up stock market into a more beat-up RE market.My wife is from the Bozeman, MT area and the place really grew on me.

The days of good deals on buy and hold houses in good areas here are gone.But in my town which is about an hour from Atlanta the market has heated up but there are still quite a few good deals around.

Las Vegas has been so over heated the last 18 months that you'll be buying at the top of the market which is not good in a volatile market like LV.