And also- be sure to set up some Keyword Alerts for some of the topics you are knowledgeable about, or other topics that interest you (like wholesale, Dallas, Rehab, etc ) so you'll be notified that those words were mentioned in the forums and can jump into those conversations!

So this may not work for you.Have a casual, yet informative, conversation with the tenant.

I have been involved in many facets of RE for the past 30 years from small rehab projects as a general contractor to a commercial property conversion of a summer rental cottage colony into a homeowners association.

Once I focused on one, I took off.Mistakes along the way: Bought a home on a major traffic street, still made money but the high risk was not worth the reward, bought a rehab project that had a legal garage conversion to add sq. footage to home.

Include conversations with seasoned investors with many years of experience.

Knowledge is not a formal education, however, you can't just talk RE 100% of the time, at some point you'll have general conversations.

The opportunity I'm seeing is that there are a few condo conversions that are priced below $1M mark and accessible for middle to upper middle income earners.

So in the conversation above, the cost basis or book value of the REO does matter, just not to you.

And perhaps one that could have tangent conversations in spirit to other industry practices, now that I have had some time to reflect.

Yet we have put together a lot of deals as a result of casual conversation.