Although my company is not based in WA, we are both buyers and private lenders on lower $ ARV SFR properties throughout the U.S.Best of luck and continued success.

If it's a high rental area which most "not nice" areas are, then you are going to be hard pressed to find a buyer.

A majority of all those RE acquisitions were closed without basic RE fundamentals as part of the deal causing them to play a major part in the housing crisis as they were not structured properly and/or in fragile portfolios that quickly crumbled with the first sign of trouble.Flash forward 10 years to 2016, minus the banking industry’s participation, we are seeing the same industry practices that played a major role in the last bubble.

Basically: Craigslist, Loopnet, CoStar and signs/banners.

@Alex Craig  unfortunately the cycle in these price point homes is just a rinse repeat cycle.. burnt out landlord syndrome.. local wholesaler investor snags them from out of area buyer tired of losing money.the chances are greater than 99% that htis person will never make a dime first 3 months his cash loss's will equal 3 to 4 years of cash flow so he will never catch up... and now he is stuck.. property as it sits is probably not worth more than 15k or so to a local wholesaler / low end turn key buyer... sad but true.And its why I always preach on BP buy the BEST you can buy not the cheapest.. the cheapest in the midwest markets is only appropriate for locals that own lots of these and do it for a living.. these are simply not appropriate for out of area passive investors they get killed financially .

Although my company is not based TX, we are both buyers and private lenders on lower $ ARV SFR properties throughout the U.S. 

I looked at a duplex the needs about $15,000 in updates. The owner is asking $72,000.
I offered $60,000. Even at $72,000 it cash flowed. My question is should I have payed the $72,000 and but additional $15,000 in to...

Although my company is located in CA and IL, we are both buyers and private lenders on lower $ ARV SFR properties throughout the U.S.Best of luck and continued success.

but a lot goes into analyzing a deal, including: $/SF, Average Days on Market in the area, how easy or difficult it is to get permits in the area, how long the flip would take, comps/ARV, Rehab, Rental Rates, how the area is trending, holding/carrying/hard money costs, closing/commission costs etc.If you can analyze the deal, you can then negotiate the deal with sellers, buyers, and lenders.

Please define what you mean by; "too crowded" as in would be buyers vs opportunities?