These are just my thoughts. 

They look for properties where the new owner's address is listed as in another state, or at least far away assuming that the hassle of dealing with an out of state property will motivate the owner to sell.Unfortunately I can't seem to find the podcast to figure out how the heck they got this list so I thought I'd reach out as I couldn't find anything already in the forums.  

Thought the majority of Owner Financing is done through other investors.

He said he thought it was preferable to just about any other method, and has been doing it for well over 30 years.

I don't really see anyone actually in Solano that crunches numbers and concludes they'd be better off buying in Oakland or SF.I've got one gentlemen actively engaged in selling off his SFR and condo assets and 1031ing them into 2-4 unit props.... so far, all his purchases have been in Solano. 

You need to get with more seasoned local investors who might see other problems you may not have thought of on this property.Contractors might be quoting 18k for repairs based on what they see.

I thought that because since i am basically a "tenant" and not the owner I would not be able to bring in my own tenants.  

Im going to do some more research on owner financing as I never thought of that or asking the owner to make the down payment as Jarrod mentioned, both of which are extremely creative investing strategies. 

There are a few additional research tools that I use that may not be as well know that I thought I'd share. 

I may have to look into that sooner than I had thought.