It also stands up a lot better to cold weather.....

@Greg Dickerson interesting, I’ll now try to get permission to call them back on the initial cold call

I recommend cold calling & door knocking, that's where the majority of my deals have come from.

In cold climates pipes need to be below the frost line and below the basement, so you have to bring in a backhoe.

Best Cheap options (In my opinion): cold call FSBOs / Expireds / D4$ leads; you can just use Zillow directly to find the For Sale By Owner homes, or a 3rd party service like the Red X or Mojo to get FSBO / Expired data.

Cold calling, and my partners and I stopped by the place to meet with him, sat down, and negotiated wed purchase it subject to the existing mortgage.

My comp analysis puts the property value at $110K - $130K max quite honestly (my realtor agrees), and WITHOUT a garage in cold climate like MKE not only does it drive the property value down, it drives the rental interest down.  

We have had really cold weather preventing builders from putting in foundations & closing in houses.

Would you just cold call the owner or do a drive by and see if it's abandoned?

I should probably be preparing for my family to show up for the Holidays, but instead here I am writing this forum post...So I have been cold calling a lot lately and recently received two phone calls back from motivated sellers.