The truth of the matter is you can easily make or lose money investing in your own backyard as you can across city/county/state lines...What I will concede is what you are doing locally will not be an effective springboard for investing outside of your marketplace---the same things that you are successful at in your local business will need to be outsourced when you expand your geography.

When I assign the contract full responsibility of it is assigned to the assignee:Assumption by Assignee: Assignee assumes and agrees to perform all the duties of Assignor in the Contract, which accrue and become due on or after the effective date.

SEO can take time to be effective, and it may be too long for you to wait.

You CREATE THE SALE by getting them to finally give voice to their problem and, most importantly, PRESENT THE SOLUTION.In this scenario the only viable solution to their problem is YOU.

I called it and it was Google voice stating it would try to connect to me. 

At a minimum, it should start raise eyebrows that there are no set standards of effectiveness...no lessons learned that have been captured...from the thousands of existing HOAs that can be quite powerful in an individual's ability to own and use land.It's more of a curiousity.

That can be very cost effective if they know your focus and execute.

Can anyone point me to a great resource for really effective check lists or questionnaires when speaking to a motivated seller or looking at a potential property?

Whether it is fsbo or not has no effect on how to run the comps.

I'm asking because I don't want to pour money into making very professional business cards if simply using a free vistaprint.com template or my own printer and a business card sheet from Office Max will do.Also, what things are effective in a REI's business card (besides the contact information)?