(Que Mission Impossible music.)I have used this method in the past with great success.Pretty hard to live with no water, and that alone should be enough to allow an emergency inspection, and the camera would'nt be a bad idea either.John

Not a very reliable method but could give you a qucik first level screening.Good luck!

Being aware of methods or strategies is not an education but more of an awareness in ways to implement those basic elements of RE.

Parish,There are basically three ways that are typically used to value commercial properties: how much it would cost to build the property minus depreciation (cost approach), discounted cash flow analysis from the income the property produces (income method), and comparing the subject property to recent sales of similar properties.

While there is no foolproof method of estimating costs, I did just finish writing something that should be helpful:http://www.biggerpockets.com/flippingbook

I am doing more the buy and hold method as the return can be nice over time.

Though the current market has something to do with removing some sellers as "motivated" due to the fact that many sellers can get full market value, in my opinion, your method of going after FSBOS in this market is not the best road to true "motivated sellers.A motivated seller is often due to a life changing experience, an out of state or tired landlord, etc.

Does Miracle Method do something similar?

It might be my slow, no-urgency method of working with sellers.

I personally began in wholesaling and was primarily interested in buying and holding but after continuing my education and broadening my investing knowledge I became more interested in buying and selling non-performing and re-performing notes.