If the tenant can stay somewhere else for a few days, knock a week off the rent and call it done.

He's blowing smoke about selling the property, shrug it off and let him vent.

Have you told him you intend to tie up his property with a contract you can't execute (no money) while you hope to find a buyer that won't rip you off?

Bandit signs = Sawed off shotgun approach.Direct mail = Full Choke barrel on the shotgun.IMHO

Online marketing takes time to do it properly so if you want to find off market deals sooner than later doing letters is the way to go.

I've gone along with people trying this, and they get greedy and end up worse off MORE THAN 50% of the time because they try and play it over a week or two rather than just as a one-day thing.

I do not have personal experience investing in flyover states, so take this with a grain of salt.This is my 'gut reaction,' which could 100% be totally off & I'll defer to those with actual experience 100%...Any place you are buying that has tenants paying 2x in rent what they could otherwise pay in PITI because the [ $70k * 3.5% = $2450 ] down payment is too much of a down payment for them to save up, isn't exactly going to have high quality low maintenance intelligent people as tenants. 

You would almost be better off going into the lending industry and leveraging your resources to produce interest income.Purely my opinion ...

I am a little concerned about starting off in San Diego, cost of living is very high- and the market seems to be extremely competitive.

@Mark M.First off, I've never been to the Fort Bend auction, so I can't compare the two.