We'd love advice on how best to get started and the common pitfalls to avoid.  

This is a great website, the only thing that everyone have in common is that everyone invests in real estate.

Then we put the property out on the market & see what comes back.But using a bit of common sense will get you far.

But I've been told this err is actually quite common, so I've decided to do my best to take advantage of the peculiar opportunity.

I think I have it all figured out, as I have found that she reduced my usable sq/ft by 500 to account for my common areas, but did not do this for the comps, thereby producing an inaccurate price per sq/ft.

This is a great website, the only thing that everyone have in common is that everyone invests in real estate.

They want to stay in their house (or else they probably wouldn’t be paying on it).With junior liens, you can’t discount emotional equity.While the most common exit with first liens is through the property (i.e. foreclosure), the more common exits for second liens are through involvement with the borrower (i.e. payment plans, discounted payoff, short sale, deed in lieu, cash for keys, etc.).Regarding deficiency judgments, although it may be a profitable business model for some (for example, collections attorneys), for most of us, it’s just not profitable to be chasing deficiency judgments.I hope some of this info helps!

The best (and more extreme) example of this was a crazy shrewd developer who sold a condo complex in bulk, then retained the parcel for the parking lot and other common areas in his ownership to sell to the buyers later (basically as collateral for the deal).

By far the most common question is "What zip code should I invest in?"

Perhaps there is an interesting idea to explore later on my idea of what it means to "buy a foreclosure [property]", essentially that does not mean the same as discount, which I find common in the public.To some degree, it's a little bit of an art.