Now I take about 5 minutes before I call them to figure that number from comps.

i'm not so sure how much of the travel he's figuring into his "cash flow" charting - he's been up there twice already.

I have found a couple of properties on the sherriffs foreclosure listing website that are rather peculiar and was hoping someone could help me figure this one out.

Welcome to the forum, and I hope you figure out your hot water situation.It's always good to see another fellow Texan here.

Your best bet is a hard money lender, and if you don't even have atleast the upfront fees (usually about 5-6%) then the HML probably won't feel comfortable with it.Third, when you say you figure it will sell for 70K or 90K, what are you basing that off of?

With a little intelligence and even without outside insight and wisdom (as from this forum) it would only take a couple rehabs to figure what to do and what not to do.People do make real money at doing #1 and #4 (I'm one of them :D ), but you caught on to the key very quickly.

What are some of the guidelines I should follow when trying to figure out if a deal is good or not?

I would say get it under contract with a contingency to leave upon your inspection Look at the guys books, figure out your financing to see what you'd be paying for mortgage, taxes, maintenance, etc. etc..

Even a ballpark figure is fine.

Zillow compiles their data from several different sources, and it is not always the most accurate data.Good to know--I figured as much, but the comparisons _I_ had made here--Zillow vs what the agent had said,-- were the same, just the agent had given me much more, and zillow didn't have it.