I know this is not ideal but I am sure there is a way to manage it especially If I can house hack a multi family building.I am also open to any meetups in the STL area since that is my local market.

Leveraging Antonio's local market knowledge, we quickly evaluated the property's potential.

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

Columbus is one of the fastest growing markets in the U.S.

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?

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.

I'd be happy to come out of the deal with the 40k I paid for the property, the bank could sell it in the current market for close to 200k, and a flipper would still be able to make money on it after repairs. 

Consider long-term goals, market trends, improvements, tax benefits, and flexibility.