I live in a smaller town so I want to be fair and establish a good relationship/reputation in the area.

I'm in TX, and if you need to get your buyer into credit improvement and help re-establishing credit let me know and you can use the people we've used for almost 10 years.

That means as clean as possible -- as high a price as I can offer, no help with closing costs, no due diligence period, no contingencies close in 3 days (or as quickly as the seller would like).Even those offers are getting rejected too often...I couldn't imagine playing games and asking for more with my offers.Now, that said, maybe other markets are still buyer-markets and investors can still afford to do this...

Take the money problem completely out of the equation, tie up deals for an established flipper and just paid for finding.

Meanwhile contact her case supervisor and inquire about if they have rent ceiling already established on this address and also understand how long inspection will take and when apx would I expect to get paid.

I live in Austin, travel to Dallas (to visit family) & Boston (for Patriots games) a good amount.

Conversely, since top listing agents don't have a need to split their commission with someone who referred them a deal, that I should look instead for a hungrier agent that isn't necessarily a top or established listing agent yet.

That said, whoever wins the game I will be rooting for in the Super Bowl.

It could put a little more capital in your game and be that one bargaining chip to insulate your from risk when everything else has failed.Michael

Then, like you said, once I establish a following, I'll move up into bigger deals and eventually get my brokers license and go off on my own.