We are investigating a parcel of land in the San Fernando Valley within the city of Los Angeles.  

The suggested advice is to have all the utilities and bills under your name and that is a sort of safeguard to not raise any red flags for someone to investigate further.Wish you the best of luck,Michael David

I had no idea about the wegolook.com option; what a great service, and one I definitely intend to use during preliminary research! 

My goal is to find raw land, take it through the engineering and entitlement process, and sell approved preliminary plats to developers that will finish physical improvements. 

I do a preliminary (free) court records search as well.

If so, we can just look at Dallas as a whole, and start our search in the counties/ZIPs that look most promising)These are the maps we created:FloridaMissouriGeorgiaMarylandNorth CarolinaVirginiaPennsylvaniaNew YorkColoradoTexasAfter looking at these maps, and reflecting on where we would want to live, we narrowed it down to the following 5 (in order of personal preference):Denver ColoradoThe San Antonio -> Austin TX CorridorThe Washington, DC to Richmond VA CorridorSouthern MarylandRaleigh-Durham, NCNext StepsWe are still discussing what our next logical step is...but we are fairly certain the next immediate step is doing a more qualitative analysis of the areas: reading business journals, reading local newspapers, investigating school and community development initiatives, investigating school quality, etc.With that qualitative analysis, we will likely eliminate another 1-3 cities, then plan to build our team and network with local investors After that, we will build our team in those cities and plan a visit to build relationships and vet properties.I hope that revealing part of our process helps at least one person, even if it's just learning something about your market from the HUGE CSV FILE I posted.Do you agree with this process?

Hmm ok great, I'll continue investigating then. 

I also risked my neck in a lot of ways investigating abandoned houses.

I agree with Matt, if you don't want to investigate yourself, have a plumber check it out.

@Kyle HenryDefinitely check out, investigate, consider a rehab mortgage loan, such as: FHA 203kFannie Mae HomestyleFreddie Mac CHOICERenovationThey offer little cash investment and HUGE upside in the right market.