Many people who have been foreclosed and evicted from their homes will rent the home to tenants to collect whatever money they can, knowing they have no power to honor the lease (also usually month to month).

Those properties can be found on their websites, usually subject to last minute changes.Auction dot com and Zillow and some others will often list those properties, but those are just aggregated lists.

I agree with Amy that an emergency fund is critical - usually a guideline of 6 months of salary is what I hear.

Usually after spending that much online I have a deal..but am I being too impatient.

I understand that a majority of them carry a 5 year balloon AND an amortization period (usually 30 years).

I usually recommend that out of state investors do not take on large projects until they are confident with their teams, but I have plenty of CA clients who have purchased moderately distressed homes and put a $15k remodel in.

There is usually a clause that says you are not relying on any oral representations of seller. 

I ended up replacing that sidewalk anyway due to municipality's threat of legal action; you lose in court and have court costs on top of the cost of the concrete work.This sort of thing is one of those real world expenses that the usual analysis tools fail to account for.

Biggerpockets is usually my first stop to see if anyone has first hand experience with what I am doing.

Usually double what you expect it to be is what ends up happening.