Also, there is the crack running across the floor of the garage so there is a possibility the cement may have shifted down lower allowing water in.

I am brand new to this site and to Real Estate investing in general and I'm hitting the ground running.

The problem is the outskirts of GR are suburbs and its pricey there and we're running out of homes there too.  

I'm also wholesaling in SD, If you run across a deal shoot me a message and I'll let you know if any of my buyers are interested.

Otherwise, you'll eventually run out of money trying to invest only in the Bay Area (FYI: I live in Berkeley and also own rental properties throughout the bay).If your goal is growth/appreciation, make sure you focus on timing your acquisitions with real estate market cycles so you're only buying at or near the bottom and you're adding signicant value by rehabbing.

Also the better you (or a trusted contractor) can estimate repair costs that are conducive to the market, the easier it is to reverse engineer the number and determine the adequate purchase price to yield your desired profit. 

I think I will also post this in the deal diaries section and keep a running account of what I am up to.

Hey Simon,I'm building a tool that does pretty much what you describe, to automate what I'm doing in spredsheets.http://www.reikit.com/compsIt uses zillow/google maps data for lookups, but I use it with my own comps that I got from my realtor, then I run my own adjustments to get an accurate ARV.It's still early days, but check it out and let me know what you think.  

I have access to Realist, and there's SOME information you can gather from the tax records, but not all homes have it, and it has proven to be quite time consuming (for example, if it says it was bought/refi-ed at 27k in 2011, I can run it through a mortgage calculator to get an idea of what current equity might be).

not a novice game.. simply go to  a land use planner or civil engineer in the area and retain them to do a due diligence report for you.