You can also drive or walk a neighborhood and look for poorly maintained homes and find the owner that way (this method heavily depends on your market)  it probably wouldn't work to well in places like CA

Neighbor is on probation for drunk driving and has a record of battery.

I basically need to know what to do when i get a house under contract

I had this happen ~ sort of~but I bought it at a discount and knew I’d be on the hook for the deposits ( triplex) Basically at the closing I signed an affidavit that stated I knew after the successful closing that once I took ownership I’d be responsible for them .

That’s basically what I was wondering so you pretty much answered my question.

Driving for dollars and ads are the only ways that I know of for finding them are there any others?

It will be a lot of work but if it allows you to buy in a year it will be a short term sacrifice.Depending on the value of your car, perhaps you could sell it and drive a junker car so that you could eliminate your car payment and use the money you were paying on the car loan towards your other debts.If you are not willing to sacrifice I would not buy in a year.

I now know the basics of investing in real estate and how to be a good well rounded agent (the only thing I have invested in is stocks and crypto currency so far). 

Owned outright... 20 thousand credit card debt, 16000 on one personal loan, 7500 on another, and 8000 on another a little over 50 thousand total debt about  on about 8 grand in cash 30 thousand in TSP account (basically 401k)...

Basically, those losses will be used, it's just a matter of when.