Otherwise, there's a good chance I'll be eating shoe leather and I'm not partial to the taste (I know where my boots have been).However, I have walked other investors, looking to do their first flip, literally step-by-step, through each and every floor/room/attic of a house (and around the full exterior too) while they took notes and I'd give them a budget for each and every item identified.  

@Dan KelleyI would assume some of your worry may be state specific, but what I've learned in KS is that if you have a well written lease, and follow the letter of the law, ie the full payment of rent has not been received by the date outlined in the lease, serve/hang the 3 day notice and do not have a pattern of accepting late or partial payments etc, then even if they did make a partial payment there really should be no issue to worry about.  

Hey Kirk,I would check out: www.myrental.com, there tenant screening services including renter eviction history, background search reports and tenant credit score.They are reasonably priced and you can purchase single reports or packages without set-up fees or minimums.There are numerous products to look into to insure you are identifying a quality tenant.I agree with Mindy as well to eliminate you paying for these services, you should collect an application fee that covers the cost.Good Luck.

Use it to identify counties for investment opportunities.

I'd recommend starting with it to get an idea, then cross checking by identifying the quality of other properties (meaning interior upgrades and proximity to transportation/shopping centers) by viewing the actual listings and pictures.

But on the "index" from an Officia records search, the parcel identifier for the Mtg.s were different, so you had to actually open the Mtg  document and read the actual legal descriptions.  

Identify records/properties where a suit is pending against the defaulting borrower,2.

To do it well it demands that you can:1) Market to motivated sellers and find them.2) Be able to talk to them, identify their problem and solve it in an equatable way.3) Truly understand rehab costs and what it would take to pull it off, both from a hard perspective but also a soft perspective (taking in to account financing costs).4) Understand the market so you can get it sold.There is lots of stuff I am leaving out, but in my opinion start with the hard stuff!  

I'm also interested in how to identify good investment properties here in Charlottesville, which I have already had challenges with. 

You only have 45 days  from your sale to identify your potential replacements.