Situations to make someone motivated, otherwise "distressed" situation (i.e. the folks you target your marketing towards): late mortgage payments, divorce, late property tax, arrest, inheritance, tired landlords, job change.Answer the phone and talk with sellers.

Since you're new, if you're in a competitive market it ain't going to happen anytime soon especially in super competitive markets like LA where people are dropping 5 figures a month on just direct mail marketing not to mention their other pipelines.If you do direct mail correctly with enough targets then you can expect solid results.

I could not target my result as much as I would have liked either.

This strip mall has stuff perfectly targeted to the submarket it's in.

What kind of marketing are you doing, direct mail, what kind of sellers are you targeting etc.?

Seniors are a good target because they can be ready to downsize or transition to assistance.

Where I am located it is call the, "insert target county" county recorder. 

Send out yellowletter post cards to your target audience.

But I can tell you the $6,000 mower and $5,000 trailer can be prime target for disallow by IRS.

If you are going out there and buying rental properties with a target of a 12% COC renturn and planning to supplement your income with the rental profits instead of reinvesting, you might as well go put it in a mutual fund with 8% returns.