But many investors skip the inspection and do the contractor bids like you said, but I'd be willing to bet that those are experienced investors who already have existing and trustworthy relationships with those contractors.

Account Closed ,To find a vacant homeowner I would suggest using skip tracing.

@Jimmy O'Connor outside of reading 1-3 books per week I regularly eat breakfast with brokers and take bankers out to lunch/ dinner often.

This way if someone skips out with their lumpsum pay-out the landlord can walk right into small claims or collections - bi-passing the landlord tenant court.

Another more conventional solution is to do a skip trace on the person and see what you can find.

So is it time to start paying Google because my Snowbirds are web searching and skipping the booking sites?  

I am not so naive to know that even these owner finance deals have their own hassles-default, skipping out in the middle of the night, trashing the home.  

http://www.lowes.com/pd/AquaSource-White-1-28-GPF-...We're skipping the wax rings that come with these and are using waxless rings instead.  

I do not have extensive experience with any of these to recommend one over the other, but here are some skip tracing links: www.publicrecordspro.com www.emailfinder.com www.ussearch.com www.intelius.com www.peoplefinders.com www.anywho.com www.lycos.com www.zabasearch.comwww.switchboard.com www.411.com www.reversedirectory.com – freewww.reversephonedirectory.com www.merlindata.com - $.25 phone lookupwww.americanfactfinder.com

It’s a special order @ HD but if a tenant clogs the toilet it has a separate drain near the top to skip the clog and flow back into the pipe.