Or is to far out there and to far from public transport (15 minute walk to metro).

after a google search he was sued as shown below.https://www.pacermonitor.com/public/case/24449702/Red_Crown_Credit_Union_v_Tamer_et_alThank you both for your input.  

In this area the public schools are not great but many residents use private or charter schools, and many residents are young professionals, having fun with city living before having children.However, that said, the maintenance can be very costly unless you purchase a home that was already completely gutted/re-habbed.Am I using the property classification incorrectly?      

What makes a self-directed IRA custodian different is that they are not purely connected to the public exchanges and limited to investing in stocks, bonds and funds, but rather have the staff training and paperwork to document the IRA's investment in the more individualized transactions that occur when investing in real estate, notes and other non-traditional assets.

@Simon Stahl All the information you are looking for should be public record.

Are these meetings open to the public?

You can also buy lists from companies like list source and there are some REI software companies that have a cash buyer search feature.Best way to find motivated sellers is to purchase lists and compile lists from city and county for 60-90-120 days late on mortgage, pre-foreclosure, delinquent taxes, water cutoff, code violation, probate, divorce, high equity, etc. and mail or cold call.Other free methods are driving for dollars, door knocking, wholesalers, craigslist, Realtors, FSBO sites, expired listings, foreclosure sites, put out bandit signs, If you have the funds you can use billboards, newspaper ads, other offline publications., TV commercials, radio ads, do pay per click/adwords, facebook, Linkedin, Youtube, and other forms of online advertising and boosted/promoted social media postings.Bottom line is consistency.

I just assumed it was available to the public. 

I realized the only real estate options I had were publically traded REITs or mutual funds that invested in REITs.

I understand you can pull it off with off market sellers but how did you expect to close on publicly listed house?