Someone that will do a lot more digging prior to saying "no." 

You need to dig in on other deferred maintenance issues.Market Method to valuation:Here, you need to take each property one by one and do either an appraisal by recent sale prices and other comps and liabilities.

Until you dig properly. 

@Trevor Wolf, in Oklahoma City you can dig into the county records on line.

John Hepner is part of DIG.

When I really dig in I am coming up with COC returns 6-8% and this is with modest maintenance reserves.

I use the standard technique of looking at the solds finding the cash buyers and dig for their contact info.  

@Glenn TracyI think you may need to dig deeper into the possibilities of what you can do with your Self Directed IRA.

Personally, I started out digging out a few deals a year, rehabbing them myself and selling on the retail market.

I'm new here as well and i'm trying to avoid information overload :) Like you, my family is also the source of my motivation to really dig into investing full time and hopefully pass the knowledge along.