We have had a lot of luck with Craig's List but this time we are not getting any responses.  What other listing approaches are there in the Houston area.

But someone who is reaching out for someone to sell the house to, those would be a higher value lead.I currently have a real estate client in my local area that I generate leads for, so while my specialty is online lead generation, I'm looking for alternatives in my local area for my own deals, which is a good exercise for me.

Which is a better choice?

Have you found better success with handwritten letters, postcards, handwritten envelopes but printed letters, a mix of multiple alternating?

Alternatively, you can just find one of the spreadsheets and just start plugging in different offer prices until you are close enough to your desired cap-rate.

I agree Investing in local market will definitely be a less risky and more manageable choice.

@Andrew Great, assuming you own the land (which I assume you do since you refer to the property as a townhome rather than a condo), if the assessor does not assign separate values to land and building, you will have to use one of the alternative methods.  

some areas don't have online lookups, or require a paid subscription - so an alternative is described below.Use Google search to search for the parcel number on Zillow; see example (insert your parcel number in the obvious place):site:zillow.com "Parcel #: 380000480364"That is it.  

My thoughts on this is that it totally makes sense to make the improvements and go for the higher rent, but he is a very good renter and I know what to expect with him.I think if I get an answer to question number one, I should be able to calculate my ROI and answer number 2 myself.For major repairs it may be that you don't have a choice but to "back it into cost basis" as you say.

Definitely would much rather go FHA, but always interested in exploring alternative options for out of the ordinary scenarios.