Im currently interested in SFH  It used to be so easy to find great homes in metro Detroit for cheap but those days are over. :( Still possible but it's like finding a needle in a haystack.

It's also not cheap - marketing is VERY expensive. 2.) 99% of those who say they are going to get into wholesaling never do a deal.

etc.Also, when I look up cheap foreclosed homes on trulia and other real estate sites, they basically direct me to Realty Trac......

But it isn't cheap to do it.You will probably lose some leads by having a voicemail but the ones that leave a message will be more motivated and you can call them back when you have time to talk and if you get enough info you can have some information about the property at hand.In my opinion for costs, convienence and personal strengths I lean towards trying to get a good voicemail setup until having a huge machine going where you might have dozens of calls a day coming in, then outsource it.

You could find some older ones for cheap and come out real good on them as well.  

That would have been fine, but just doing that wouldn't have worked, according to 2 lenders I talked to, to justify increase in purchase price.I considered doing a very minor amount of work- just painting the house, putting new floor in kitchen or swapping out existing countertop for cheap granite- something like that.

I put cheap mini blinds up, newspaper on the porch, kids toys, bike in front & leave a car in the driveway.

My wife and I wrote 500 yellow letters by hand and I created a cheap website on Wix and started a Google Adwords campaign to drive traffic to it.  

If you are willing to play there, you can get some seriously cheap deals.

Its a cheap way to find deals but you will at least need a hard money lender to give you pre-approval letter for financing.Again with ANY strategy, doing it consistently and persistently is key to gleaming success from it.