My thinking is this leaves me with two paths: A) Best case is I pick up the foreclosure for $1M, immediately list it for sale at $1.6M or more and hopefully sell for a > $500K pretax profit. 

@Connor Chatlos I would say the part AFTER a client signs a contract is when the real fun begins.

I read a few reviews on an agent that came up on BP and they were not great. 

We have done all kinds of deals on our own ranging from buying, selling, flips, BRRRRs, and now are also invested in commercial properties along with our SFR portfolio.After retiring from the Navy last summer (2023) and working in a corporate office for 18 months, I have made the leap to working for REI Nation, the country's premier turnkey investment property company.

We found this deal on the market.

The biggest ways IMO are MLS data, multiple solutions for sellers (off market cash deal or listing), ability to rep. yourself on your own deals (saving on commission).Commission savings adds up fast when you're doing multiple deals a year.That being said, there is cost to having a license so if you're only doing a couple deals a year then it might not make as much sense.

I found this deal on Zillow I didn't even try to negotiate the deal to bring the price lower.

@Shawn NofzigerHi Shawn,I came across your post and while I am a long way from Lansing, I work with a ton of new and aspiring investors and the challenges they have getting from idea to action. 

After the 2 hurricanes maybe only 25% were still on the beach, but the hurricanes were a pain and resulted in our insurance going up significantly. 

We typically look for decent properties that are likely at the bottom of some bigger investor's portfolio.