She is motivated to sell but owes roughly $325k on the property and doesn't have money to bring to closing. 

The area around Elton can be pretty rough. 

We do a showing, look at the rough numbers, make an offer - tit/tat - agree on a price, we both sign the contract.

After a pretty rough start to my investing career (which probably could have been avoided if I had known about BP), I now own a couple of condos, a house and a guest house all as long term rental properties that are cash flowing positively.   

Roughly 90% of all real estate transactions occur through the MLS and every serious investor should be taking advantage of the resource, and no you don't need to be a realtor or even have MLS access.

Hopefully with some pictures, I could obtain some rough estimates on any potential work. 

Here are the rough final numbers:Purchase price: 39,000Repairs: 29,000Holding costs: 500Sales price: 100,000After closing costs I should clear close to 25,000. 

I will start look into Spring and the other zip codes mentioned because I visit there roughly 2 times a year and really want to grab up another property before the end of the year.

Picked them up for 1900 each, 10k in rehab, roughly better than $500 net / month after PM cost / taxes. 

In looking at the numbers, I can buy a 3BR SFR for roughly $275,000, live in one of the rooms and rent out the other two for a total income of about $1800/month (before expenses).