Small real estate investing in the Puget Sound region is red hot, with hundreds of local players and there are scores of established investors who can simply write a check for the full purchase price, if they like the deal.

They are simply administrators and processors, and do not provide any kind of diligence or IRS compliance guidance other than general education.  

In the areas discussed above, you have to take rentometer with a big grain of salt but in a neighborhood like the old west end of Richmond in the JR Tucker High School district there are an overwhelming amount of very similar 3bed/1bath brick ranchers so you can be a little more confident in the comps rentometer gives you.Market knowledge and familiarity is key (and cannot be gotten simply by surfing the internet, no matter how well the data is represented) which is why you should consider working with an investor-friendly Realtor (shameless self-promotion aside...). ;)

But a landlord can't simply take a deposit and then not deliver. 

Does it simply mean that you can put it "not in use"?

There's simply no spread there.

it took 18 months and about 10k and it was uncontested.. the seller went dark and simply would never answer and they had 40k of my money so I did not just let this one go.. for a few grand I would just chalk it upbut for 40k and I wanted the property I went the whole nine yards.

Jay Hinrichs I'm personally not interested (I skimmed the site though, not bad) I simply tagged you as I've seen the website in your signature whilst trolling the forums.

There is no reason people can't simply say what these folks are, "an investor you know"  Don't blow smoke and BS at a seller. 

The more ethical GCs will simply say they are too busy instead of charging insane overheads ( I’ve seen some crazy bids before).