@Rob Drum Yes, Google Maps has been a wonderful tool!

@Jared Huffman,Find direct comps that sold, and are actively listed!   

I'm definitely not a genius but have bought and sold investment properties and also we have many buy and hold properties.

Hi @Maria McCreless our company has been sending mailers for over 15 years and found it to be a great tool to locate motivated sellers. 5% is a good initial response average.

REOs (bank-owned properties that have already gone through foreclosure) are sometimes sold using the auction method... but they are owner auctions.Be very sure of the type of auction you are participating in. 

We sold our house in Tacoma and we were able to buy an apartment building.

However, I'll bet it will come up when the property is finally sold in a more conventional sale.  

This property is in Waldo area, MO side of Stateline and other houses in the area are getting renovated and sold for good value. 

Zillow openly explains this at https://www.zillow.com/zestimate/ and publishes their median error rates and other stats for some major metro areas at https://www.zillow.com/zestimate/#acc.The good news is, it's relatively easy to validate how accurate it is for your market:Have your realtor pull 50 or 100 active and sold homes in the market/neighborhood you want to analyze.Compare actual asking and sold prices to the Zestimate for each one, put them in a spreadsheet, and develop some averages. 

http://www.har.com/content/newsroom/Houston Real Estate Highlights in October Single-family home sales continued their post-Hurricane Harvey rebound as volume rose 7.5 percent year-over-year with 6,381 units sold;Single-family home sales remain 2.8 percent ahead of 2016’s year-to-date volume;Total property sales increased 6.6 percent with 7,614 units sold;Total dollar jumped 10.8 percent to $2.1 billion;The single-family home median price rose 3.9 percent to $226,491, which represents an October high;The single-family home average price increased 2.7 percent to $285,858, also the highest level for an October;Single-family homes months of inventory grew year-over-year to a 3.9-months supply, but is down from a 4.3-months pre-Harvey peak – the result of a surge in consumer demand for housing;Townhome/condominium sales rose 5.8 percent, with the average price down 1.1 percent to $195,393 and the median price down 3.1 percent to $153,000;Leases of single-family homes rose 13.6 percent with the average rent up 2.8 percent to $1,776;Volume of townhome/condominium leases jumped 34.8 percent with average rent up 2.9 percent to $1,533.HAR still encourages anyone who has housing available for temporary occupancy (up to 12 weeks) to please post it on our Harvey Temporary Housing page at www.har.com/temporaryhousing to provide housing to those in need.