I have been involved in purchasing houses at the sheriff sale.

So it's a bit of a chicken and egg problem, but this is why "new agent 101" is to have agents tell everyone they know about the fact that they are now an agent.Lastly, if you do direct marketing to sellers for the primary purpose of buying their house, and you get responses but the selling is asking too much, you can try to convert those people to listings (along the lines of maybe, "I can help you in multiple ways", one by buying myself, another by listing if you prefer a higher price but a longer wait, etc.).Good luck and let us know how it goes of course!

One of the core principles is that you can't be involved, do anything yourself or pay with your personal money.

This will make them give you better estimates as well as the scope of work involved.

We also of course have a large multiple insurance settlement that I want to invest intelligently which I'm thinking will make all of my goals possible.   

You probably can't get a list directly, but these courts typically have computer systems, often online, that you can access to extract the data you seek.Depending on the info required of the evicting landlord, you can easily get their name and address, the address of the property that's involved in the eviction, and possibly even the landlord's phone number.

Now the hard part, figuring out if i want to use that to snipe a great deal on our first property, attempt multiple properties at once, or save more and attempt to stay local in SoCal.

Things I will mention to the seller: -Having no realtor(s) involved will save him 6%.

She was not involved save for the first 2 visits and the last full month of our searching and actually looking at listings.

The house only spent a week on the MLS before it was sold in a multiple offer situation.