They do it by pulling a list of all the properties in specified area that have sold for cash (no financing) in the past 12 months, and the soliciting the new owners of these properties (the folks who have presumably bought these properties without the need for conventional financing).The idea behind this is - they're trying to find a specific demographic of buyers who are highly-liquid (or at least, they've demonstrated high liquidity at some point in the past year) and their intent is to reach out to them via direct mail and present them with a new investment opportunity. 

I work in lawn and landscape full time and I am getting into real estate part time(for now).  

I would love to hear what you think about these areas for a couple in our demographic as well, in terms of quality of life (both 30, newly married, looking for a good neighborhood to start a family). 

If I didn't have a landscaping company and trucks and tools I would rent for sure.

Funny, i just told my VA i want her to post my deals on Postlets and FB, also wanna use Ebay for some land deals.She knows how to target certain demographics on Facebook, which i wanna test for finding sellers as well.Good job man, i don't know if i would have to guts to risk that earnest money, but you pulled it off!!

Backyard are "very" important in this demographic!

@Mark Robertson where do you get the demographic split?

In SFR's, the tenant usually pays for all expenses not covered in property taxes and homeowners insurance, while the landlord usually pays for water, landscaping, trash, and sometimes gas and electric, which increases the overhead by a large sum.

Obviously, a lot of it depends on the demographic you rent to as you say.  

You can get a complete demographic breakdown of every Minneapolis & St Paul neighborhood here - http://www.mncompass.org/profiles/neighborhoods/mi...Gives you things like age, race, % rentals, incomes and a ton more.