Hey Devin,When I was marketing to expireds I was sending a 3-step direct mail campaign.First step was a postcard letting them know I was going to be sending them a Home Seller's Guide (several other reasons for this postcard).Second step was the home seller's guide in a fax 'Rush Priority Express' envelope, along with a sales letter and testimonials from Angie's List and Zillow (screen shot).Third step was a mini trash can with a final sales letters ("Don't Throw Away...").Separates you from the bunch, plus it gets you to follow up because most agents just send one thing in the mail, or just call once, and then never do any follow up ever again.

The first book is foundational, the second covers more advanced topics and will help you understand about tax advantages and other strengths of real estate, and the third helps you understand market cycles and how to analyze markets.  

If you use a third party servicer with owner occupied (OO) property sales, make sure you can foreclose when they don't pay.

Open title and get a third party authorization signed by the seller to give you access to communicate with the bank directly 

The access to the property, a tiny country lane, is owned by an anonymous third party. 

I hope the deposit can be $10k or less and to use the rest for rehabbing and buffer.I have a good job with a good salary, so, if things go south a bit, I can cover a bit of the payments with my salary.My plan after that would be to attempt once again to get a lender in the US to lend me money on my two properties, one which I don't have any mortgage on, and the other which I would be essentially refinancing, and from there, buy my third.I'm sure after my third, some of the potential investors I'm talking to will be more interested in my business.Is this plan sound?

If you could dig into their smaller  deals and see how they really happened, my guess is you would find CAP rates are a second or third tier concern behind comps. 

We had to fire 2 third party companies before we started our own in-house management company. make sure to interview multiple players, confirm the manage the same asset type/class that you plan on buying.

I’ve built a few homes with a few general contractors and the “want” is there however it’s not a “need” (e.g. the Home buyer: I “want” a multi-room audio system, but I “need” a third bedroom).

So it depends on what this "bad debt" is I think but I can understand why it could make sense to pay off that debt ASAP.Maybe consider keeping a third of the sales proceeds as reserves, another third goes toward paying down the debt, and the last third goes toward investing in more properties.