I agree that the market is very competitive in California - especially if you are searching via the MLS or making offers to distressed or vacant property homeowners. 

Property owners get an annual update on their SEV & Taxable Values with their city property tax bill, typically sent in December.So now, the city assessor tracks the SEV, but homeowners are taxed based upon the capped Taxable Value.

Examples of lists: lis pendens; homeowners who purchased before 2015; for-closure list; probate; to name a few.This is a numbers game so you'll want to build out a sizable list in order to have good lead flow.

It took a lot of testing to figure out how to optimize my text messaging campaigns, and now I can do it without any issues.If the process is frustrating, please do not give up on it because you can position yourself as the sole investor solution to many homeowners in your market.

I will NOT deal with a homeowner or consumer; the deal must be investor to investor.

Regarding DTI - mortgage industry will alllow around 40%, but tenants tend to pay a higher percentage of their income to rent/housing than homeowners.

A wholesaler can come in and potentially save credit history, setup a deal to keep them in there home and even structure a deal to get the homeowner some equity back.The wholesaler/investor would never know this opportunity existed if they di not find a record/notice/document that indicated the home was being foreclosed on.

Nothing can guarantee that.Looking back over 30 years and hundreds of deals I can recall only two occasions when a greedy homeowner tried to bail on our deal. 

The ones I'm very serious about I'll call and get a home owners quote and verify the current assessed taxes to give me a more accurate mortgage payment. 

I use PropWire to find home owners and give them calls, however I never get responses back.