Having a proper business plan, multiple exit strategies, and the ability to properly analize the investments are also key factors in addition to purchasing at a large discount in any economy, bad, or good.

I've tried multiple times over the course of a few days.

Well, there are many ways to skin a cat in REI.....What is the motivation for the seller?

A solid set of contractors, proven over multiple years.2.

In Portland, OR I usually check with the county for property tax foreclosures...they typically hold their auctions once a year...depending on their inventory maybe more often.So I would check the county website for whatever city you are looking in...i'm sure there are multiple counties you can check...they will have a section for property tax auctions...and there should be someone you can call...they will probably put you on their mailing list and they will notify you when they are having sale...at least that is how it is done here in Portland.

On a subject to or L/O, I do the work and get paid multiple times; including what the seller may give me, what the tenant buyer may give me, my backend profits and the tax advantages (on a subject to).

It is probably something that will need to be tested and recorded multiple times before it gets the conversion rates you might want.

Sean,I have also gone directly to some of the banks websites where they list their current REO holdings, search for the area of interest, and then identify the agents that come up on multiple properties.

You're going to go over at some point and that costs multiple hundreds of dollars while the cheapest plan I've seen that makes the least bit of sense for business is about 60-70 bucks a month after taxes.

Zip code alone is not a sufficient criteria as multiple mini markets exist within the same zip code.