the 2nd association it resonates is the highly consumption-driven society we live in. in my area (coastal, urban southern california) i'm surrounded by 2 distinct lifestyles. there's the majority: seems like 95% of the local population who are renters, driving luxury cars, sporting fancy clothes, jewelry, hairdos, etc but obviously living paycheck to paycheck as exemplified by hardly a day somebody or the other is spotted  getting their car repo'ed by a camera crew. the rarer are the landlords, who in this area seem to be of mostly asian demographics (chinese, koreans, japanese) who live obviously very frugally: old 80s model sedan, oldfashion business cloths, always eating simple meal from home, seemingly never splurging $$$ other than into expanding their portfolio), my observance is relatively very few landlords in the area own relatively huge portfolios, each.with the advent of these infomercials and the internet (ie, BP) more and more people want to get a 'piece of the REI pie' and more power to them. there does seem to be this dream of rags to riches and while its ok to dream, do most people actually expect their life to turn around like that, as portrayed in most of the infomercials or even in the everyday setting where the masses living paycheck to paycheck, are spending their last expendable dollars not on depositing into savings acount, but blowing $20 on scratchies etc. in summary, is my observation reminds me of my days when i worked on wall st and the 'ra trace' was so obvious with dime a dozen stock brokers makin 6fig salaries at some point but blowing it on recreational drugs apparently costing thousands of dollars a pop to the point the next week they are broke again and that $ wasnt invested but wasted.  

You will only assure that your letters and mail pieces with be tossed in trash.

I go on the appointment, in 10 minutes, I have the deed to a house with $30k equity and the ability to buy their vacant lot as well.So YEAH there is competition but mail creative and intriguing mail pieces and you will do FINE my friend!

You're going to need hundreds, if not thousands, of names and addresses and you're going to need to hit them will multiple mail pieces to get a deal.  

One marketing and R/D approach you could take is drive down to the local universities with a clipboard a piece of paper. 

And, most of my probate deals have come from the 4th or 5th mail piece.

How long is a piece of string?

Is it a A, B, C deal or it could be a mix depending on what type of investors you might have in the deal and their risk tolerance.Write out your investment criteria on a piece of paper.For example my criteria is " I buy properties built after 1980, B/C class property in B area with pitched roofs, individually metered, with value plays such as low rents, poor management, high vacancy and a motivated/flexible seller.

He is in the sacramento area and definitely top notch! 

Hi Everyone,I am working on getting all the pieces in order to go on the hunt to purchase my FIRST duplex.