I made an offer with contingent on engineer verifying structural damage of no more than 15k.

I should have made it more consistent and easier to understand.

Heres what i did, and i could have took the long way and i havent had any deals yet but ill break down my trial and error and the method i feel will work best for me.first, i searched zillow for homes that are selling for low cost, found the owners and mailed yellow letters of course-the problem with this is, a lot of these homes still have loans on them and probably bank owned already, the owner still lives there, theres already a realtor on the job, just way too many obstacles, i dont expect to get any calls from those letters but you have to start somewhere.next, i started searching on auction sites for homes that did not go up for auction yet or the auction expired-again, the problem with this is the homes are 9/10 bank owned. while some of them are foreclosures theres still extra loops to jump through.I considered buying lists of vacant homes and stuff but i am the most frugal person you will ever meet lol, its not that i cant afford to buy a list, its just that i know theres a different way and plus whoever made those list had to have someone else generating that list for them.

One of the most helpful blogs on this site reminded investors: if you made $200 on your first house, that's ok.

I'm new to all of this, and haven't made my first deal yet.

We actually started buying during the down turn but have made purchases with this question in mind.

I have been on this platform for some time and have found it to be a great resource and a great place to network, I have made some great connections here.

The portfolio was primarily made up of buy/hold assets, but we also flipped homes as well.

If you are starting with a napkin sketch (custom house)  then yes. 

The other is great... wonderful, timely communication and great customer service.