The tax sale for 2013 starts at the beginning of August, so those sellers might be more motivated.

If I do another mentor program I will be fine with splitting deals- I think then everyone is equally motivated to help and get the deals done.

Hello Iris,One of the biggest issues I have when training our VA's is letting them know that I don't know how to convert unmotivated sellers to motivated. 

How many letters sent -> how many people called -> how many were interested in showing you their house -> how many you got under contract, etc.Let's say you send out 2000 -> 60 calls -> saw 5 houses -> 1 under contract.So if you're getting a lot of people asking you what your offer is, you're still in that phase where you're having to filter out the motivated ones from the unmotivated ones. 

I'm looking to own some sort of cabin as a vacation rental out that direction (maybe North Tahoe) in a few years or so.

The first one's going to be a house hack of some sort.

Offering to give them the full 6% commission is a good way to motivate them, provided you are able to get in touch with them in the first place.

I simply take the full deposit on the date of move-in and pro-rate the remaining month's rent.But yes, hustle to get it looking great (especially since you've just closed on it and you'll be highly motivated to get into it).  

Thanks for the motivation! 

Typically, until you reach a certain hurdle, you will not be collecting any sort of equity promote.