I live in Los Angeles and the numbers just don't make sense here for cash flow to me.Some technologies/resources I use when evaluating some property are City-Data, Trulia, Zillow, Google Street View (to drive the town), City Tax Assessors web site, Realquest, Angie's List (a must!)

What about businesses that take a holistic approach and service all three needs?

She is inexperienced with investment properties, but I nonetheless chose to trust her over trusting someone of whom I no prior knowledge.For these reasons, I will continue to buy in Springfield until:1) the market of viable multi-families is tapped out (which shouldn't take long), or2) I learn enough to feel confident investing in other markets with the help of other professionals.I am very interested in hearing what advice you have to offer to a noob in my situation, getting recommendations of quality turn-key services providers in other markets, and in connecting with other people who can help me in Illinois (a finance person comes to mind first).Thanks, BP!

Ben Leybovich, I see nothing wrong with offering a service for money either.

or should I take those last few dollars and hire an inexpensive skip trace service to locate the owner(s) of some of those abandoned properties?

Also using the "Bill Pay" service most banks offer is typically free and processes as an electronic check.

figure time to schedule TitleV inspection, results, schedule septic service to evaluate the job, draw up plans/design.

During the day I am project manager for a web development company that specialized in the Drupal (an open source CMS if you aren't familiar).

The property turns me about $800/mo after expected expenses and debt service.

The differences in service costs, by location always interests me.