I read Steve Cook's article on judicial foreclosures: foreclosure-update-happier-days-on-the-way-for-judicial-states/ and in that article he indicates how long the foreclosure process is in judicial states and the impact it has on investors by reducing the number of houses available.All of this brings me to my question, which has two parts:1) is there a viable way to obtain a list of homes in the pre-foreclosure/foreclosure process in judicial states where no public notice of impending foreclosure is required?

I bet some will do it on your schedule, one trip, at a reduced rate compared to an appliance center service call.

Recently, our local housing authority has reduced their inspections to every two years to save money.

Also, it helps to prevent/reduce branches from falling on your neighbors yard.  

One of the ways I have drasticlaly reduced paying Uncle Sam over the years is by being a business owner.

So my best bet is to go off of the most recent comps, since the home models are the same, however reduce value for location.

At this point, we've reached a crossroads: we're discussing the cost/benefit of adding a new partner.It seems that if we add a third partner, we benefit from additional capital contribution, reduced personal risk, fresh ideas, and a quicker time to creating a self-sufficient business (i.e., having business profits fund new properties).

I reduced my fee from $5k to $3k, gave the buyers right of first refusal on leads until I brought them another deal and finally we had an agreement.So this was my experience with my first wholesale deal.

In order to get around the forclosure process in judicial states - could i buy the house at a reduced house from the person that wants the mortgage and then rent back to them with an option to buy at a fixed rate?

I'm sure I can negotiate the price a little lower as well considering it was just reduced by $10k.