After 15 years the only damage I saw when they moved was from furniture sliding and in the most heavily walked areas you could see the wood look wearing off and the base color showing through.

If you can developer relationships with someone in Special assets or collections, you will have a much greater chance of buying a property heavily discounted.

Get some investors that are heavily working that market of i.e.

Do you charge for damages when you find them so you don't need to depend heavily on the security deposit?

I am heavily considering exactly what you described.

-Visiting their current residence unannounced, stating that I was in the area and noticed they forgot to fill something in on their app or I could not read it, tell them I drank lots of coffee and need to pee.

No you don'ti won't make friends on BP saying that but real estate in itself is already a parasitic activity heavily weighting on households, but realtors and wholesellers are the epitome of a parasitic cartel providing almost zero value to society and the economy from a general standpoint.

The broker was fined heavily and quit his shenanigans!  

I was able during the last 2 years here to study the RE market and made a lot of networking with awesome people here that are heavily involved in RE, I ended up joining their REA and going to their events and property crawls and simply educating myself about the market so I can start investing.

Your state is so unique (aka: heavily regulated) that they wrote a different book just for that state while the other 49 states are covered in one book.It will be the best money you spend as a new investor.