It’s not $25k but is $25k what he is betting or grossing.

If you do #1, I'm willing to bet your expenses on the property your first year are higher than your rent now.

In fact, if someone asked me today who the best bet would be, I would say Nimius--and this is based on the many calls I get from out of state 'investors' who have bought properties in the hood, typically at way too high of a price, and want to sell shortly after and who those companies/people are that sold them or are managing these properties.  

I gut says yes, however if I have 10 applicants, I don't know if its common practice with these web based rental applications to charge each that applies verses with paper applications/checks, payment can be returned if an applicant doesn't even qualify enough to have the backround/credit check done. 

Like previously stated, the big box stores are probably your best bet w this situation, or a going out of season sale.

And I bet none of these so called experts can reproduce our results.

Bet your cards on living for very cheap or near free AND appreciation here in California.

That's going to be a tough sell.Well, If you're serious about this then your best bet is probably to find a successful investor actually doing what you want to do (*important*).

I bet the probability of someone with one house that desperately needs to sell, is a LOT higher then someone with 2 houses.So you are in fact PAYING money TO reduce your chances of success.And I was just being polite when I said "the probability".

For internet leads the best bet is to get a site like Carrot.comYou can also purchase lists with different motivations like absentee owners, 60-90-120 days late on mortgage, pre-foreclosure, delinquent taxes, water cutoff, code violation, evictions, probate, divorce, etc. and mail or cold call.Other methods are driving for dollars, door knocking, wholesalers, craigslist, Realtors, FSBO sites, expired listings, put out bandit signs, billboards, newspapers, other offline publications.You can use pay per click/adwords, motivated seller website with SEO, facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, and other forms of online and social media marketing.If you have a big budget you can do radio, TV and billboards.