I'm an avid reader and actually take pleasure in this sort of research, but what frightens me -and this is no shade to all the kindness of info offered me by some of the industry professionals here-, .... is exactly that: There is such a largess of professional brokers, flippers, money managers, agents and companies vying for my attention that at this point, my instincts tell me to back into my tortoise shell, read a few books on this, and THEN come back into this information market.

If you send out enough direct mail you see all sorts of stuff. 

That might put you at a disadvantage if the seller is motivated and would rather drop the price for another buyer instead of fix the property to VA standards.

What sort of analysis did you do before your first deal?

The key here is (1) the seller is motivated ( desperate ) enough to give up control of his property to someone who has little if any capital invested, while receiving no money upfront himself and still maintaining liability on his mortgage, and/or (2) the seller is convinced that you will be successful AND that his risk is small AND that he will receive future benefits.

Thanks again for the motivation guys!

Rather having some sort of quick estimation I could plug in to help estimate total cost.Mitch - Good point of tenants paying the utilities.

Hope y’all enjoy it and get motivated.

I had one inspector that was sort of telling me to run from this house.

Can anyone recommend a recourse that is a sort of a step-by-step approach?