:)  The rental market is really strong, but I'm not sure if you live locally or not.

I would say that about 98% of all residential rehabs in the Denver market are done without permits.

The best advice I can give to a new investor at your age is to stay out of consumer debt and save as much as you can for your initial investment.

There is a section in Furnished Finder that tells if utilities are included or not so you can see if most properties in your market do the same.

The market value of the property is around $485K and the owner is behind about $30K in payments.

However, in my market, realtors often ask for an offer before providing basic information like the age of the CAPEX items, including the roof. 

Any other advice or strategies for finding your first off-market deal?

A source of good quality notes and a market to sell them to.

Look at their marketing strategy.

The “process” is the same as opposed to how the marketing is different in each state depending on whether it is a judicial process (court filings with a judge) or non judicial ( Lender simply posting in a legal newspaper)Yes,a short sale can be done by a homeowner without a foreclosure date if they are being relocated by their Company more than 50 miles but in this group we are real estate investors and it is hard to target a “list” of those home owners who may have received a job promotion AND think their home is worth less than the total debt.