You can waste a lot time on this or you can actually do real estate :)Banks are not going to talk to you unless your a HUGE player and even then you would be buying on QCD - the fact your asking this question tells us your not a huge player - and when I say HUGE player like your one of 10 people in the country who can do this.Auctions are your best bet or pre-foreclosures lists but your not really going to be chatting with the banks much.You can try to create a relationship (which means buying from them over and over) with a broker who handles them.

My best bet would be before making an offer etc to look up the properties and get a quick search of the headaches before right?

I would be willing to bet this!

That said, I bet there are incredible deals to be had potentially in the city neighborhoods and definitely in the more stable suburbs as well and given my family connections I believe it's an area we could potentially do well.

You bet.

When I arrived at the job on Monday, I see an open garage door and about 5 thousand dollars worth of tools just sitting there with the light on, ( i bet that looked wierd all night long in the culdesac for 3 solid nights.)

I would be willing to bet that you probably wont be able to sell any properties to those guys until you build a relationship with them.

While I think we are still in for a bumpy ride REI is a good bet.

This kind of building I'd bet would be cheaper to build than to buy an existing building to convert.

I'd venture to bet that in 5 years the bulks of what the funds are all scooping up will all find there way back to the market.