the buildings may be above the base flood elevation but the parcel itself may be throwing you in the flood zone.

Throw out the loser and test again if you wish, putting a new challenger up against the mailer that did better in "round 1".

They key is how fast you want to churn cash and what does your day job throw off in income??

I am in Lake Havasu City, Arizona and we have a SHORTAGE of vacation rentals for summer and winter visitors.... just thought I'd throw that out there. 

Throwing your numbers into the 50% rule looks like you would net a negative $55/month.I would ask for the last few years of the P&L.

There is normally a service I like to use called spaminator, which sets up basically throw away email accounts.

I am also going to study real estate markets in Iowa in an attempt to locate a the right market for me to move to when I get back home.I have found that a focused effort is much more effective than blindly throwing darts.

If they still won't bite and are good prospects, I'll throw them in to get the lease signed.About 70% of the tenants will pay extra for them by going this route.

After thinking about it I realized that there was no other bidder as this had happened to often and bidders are not going to throw away the 2500 deposit that easy .On another occasion my partner was called by the company and was asked if he still wanted a home he was out bid on and he excepted at his bid price and sent the $5000 deposit.

There was a followup thread you may want to read:  Making Money on Deals that Most Investors Throw In the Trash1)  This was never answered.