On top of meeting with my team I also plan on driving through neighborhoods  with rental potential.

This will drive prices down, both ACV and Rents. 

I am not a lawyer, but I believe you are in the clear to send him a new check, non certified, as long as you keep the original, unopened and returned check that shows it was sent back as undeliverable. if he ever makes waves surrounding the sec deposit, you can then show the judge that you sent the original by certified mail within the legal timeframe. in addition, save the written correspondence showing he refused to accept a certified letter.

@Kameron Carson They won't be in a nice easy list unless you want to pay for one you can drive around find properties that look like they might be a bit run down, write down the address, when you get back home you can look up the owner, then you can either write them a letter or do some investigate work / pay for a skip trace service to find a phone number and call them. 

Then after you drive the ARV to let's say $150k and you get a lender to give you an 80% LTV then you just paid off the HML and have $0 of your own money in the deal. 

Account Closed search BP for “driving for dollars”, “direct mailing”. 

Driving for dollars?

Others will suggest driving around neighbourhoods looking for run down houses and then finding out who owns the property.

Obviously there wont be properties and areas that look like a war torn country but you will know an E when you see it.We focus on B and C properties in B areas, so we are looking for properties that need work to bring them up to standard of the surrounding area.

It took me a while to ever getting around to my first one, but really enjoyed being surrounded by like-minded people - hard to explain that feeling!