They never cancelled the agreement because they didn't want to pay a cancellation fee and instead preffered to keep it active and a prove showing case by case.

Owning income real estate directly is one of the many ways of owning income real estate and the way most frequently discussed on BiggerPockets because it involves the most hands-on activity (and when done correctly, probably yields the highest return of all the different ways of doing real estate).

But as you said, for someone who is active, there are deals that don't fit your criteria.

Different levels of investment activity.

There are some scammers out there taking all of our listings and postings them as their own, taking deposits from unsuspecting tenants.It seems as if Craigslist is actively helping these scammers! 

I did this when I was an active residential agent.

I got off of active duty air force and was looking for a job.

Mail is a good proactive approach to reach people who aren't yet actively searching for a way to sell their home. 

These are probably the three most active cash flow real estate states that have no state tax. 

I'm currently working with a group I met here on BP and our their 1st deal was listed on MLS, the ARV comps were in the 550-650 range, there are active listings that could be comps on up to 700k, so using a listing price of 635k, we bought this home for 330k, plus 120k for a complete rehab.