What's the best way/technique to discover potential profitable REO's?

There's so much to learn in REI, but if you narrow your focus onto a specific technique (flipping, wholesaling,rentals, etc.) you can whittle away any excess information that would only clog your mind with unnecessary stress.I'd bet that you feel lost because you're trying too hard to take everything in all at once!

That means that reopening has to be custom tailored to each specific area - not a one size fits all plan.7.

Are there any other techniques that real estate professionals can use?

An investor looking to create transactions below market value (known as wholesale) will have to use his knowledge, his cunning, his negotiating skills, personality and alternative financing techniques (also know as creative financing) to make the deal work.To FLIP properties for a profit could also be known as making a short term profit by controlling real estate below market value (wholesale).Some tips:Make offers often subject to assignment and public auction (sold as is all cash)Using "bank days" (gives you more time to find an assignee)Build in an automatic extension (so that you do not have to ask for it when you need it)Always ask for Contract Candy in your offer (seller incentives; all the furniture, cash back etc)Use hybrid offers (limited partnership with the seller)Get right of possession (so you can show the property, clean it up a little, prep for auction sale)Multiply your offers (have agents make offers on your behalf on expired listings, no need to look at them, offer 25% below the expired listed price, subject to inspection.

- By goal setting, you can reverse engineer where you want to be 5 years from now, 10 years from now, or a year from now, and start planning out the strategies and techniques within the realm of real estate that you can use to get you there.For example...

If you wanna flip later this year watching homes that are for sale now and looking at their disclosures will help you to learn what is selling and what isn't in our market, allowing you to better tailor your flip! 

your offers will need to be tailored based on your personal criteria.

Negotiation, basic communication, understanding buyer personality types, building rapport, overcoming objections, closing techniques, and follow-up marketing are all monumentally important.  

Some things you may not have heard of or have not tried, but I think real estate and techniques of buying with no down are universal.