I am in the process of creating a website targeted to pre-foreclosures and short sales, and I would appreciate any input and shares on websites that attract good leads for this specific niche.I do have an idea of how I would like my website to look and feel, and plan to give a lot of free info, but not all of course, about avoiding foreclosure, to capture leads.Please share any good sites and input, I very much appreciate your help!

@Jonathan Twombly  I do my best to avoid most of the complications. 

Banks are not evil to be avoided, rather a tool to use with care.

A few suggestions:To avoid being accused of discrimination of one kind or another, you might want to give an application and a list of your acceptance criteria to each adult who sees the place.

I'd advise any out of state investor to avoid the 64128 zip code without thorough knowledge of the area and a local team that has already proven themselves to you.

Perhaps I have been lucky to avoid this on the first handful of properties but I recently had my first dispute with a contractor. 

If you live in one of the properties for 2 of the last 5 years you can avoid capital gains on 225k 500k if you are married- in income on the sale of that house. 

That losing money is with it occupied, so even if you somehow avoid disasters - you would have vacancies to contend with.Would the family member managing the property be interested in buying it?

You should also note that a 1031 exchange does not allow you to avoid taxes, only to defer them.

There is nothing like actually buying your first home and learning from that but you can definitely avoid many mistakes by reading and learning from others.