Unfortunately, the town that I purchased in is extremely backlogged, and it took 5 weeks to get zoning and building permits. 

As usual there wasn't much of interest on the mls when I was "window shopping" and I was finding it extremely difficult to find any owner info via my normal approaches of GIS and county assessor searches.

All I can tell you is that although it's extremely frustrating dealing with building departments and permitting there's no getting around them, even though it feels like dealing with the gestapo a times.As difficult as it may be, your best bet in dealing with them is to be friendly and humble, and leave out the "this isn't a free country" part.

I am extremely eager to get into real estate and property investing.

If your data set is really limited, I suggest the following: (1) calling the people on your list within 3 days of sending the mail, and (2) planning to send each person at least 6 more pieces of mail in 10 to 14 day increments.Direct marketing is extremely effective, but you really have to work at it. 

Its very compact (3b/1 ba, 1054 sf), so even with some structural repair to be done, I cannot imagine a gut rehab to be extremely costly.

The rental market is extremely strong right now.

The state of the market makes it extremely easy to find good tenants and keep them for the long term.

My atty has been extremely helpful with different things that I never would have thought about.Hope this was helpful.

I'm in the southern portion of the SLC valley and finding it extremely difficult to find anything.