Where are all the good deals?

Over the weekend I gave some thought to where to find all the good deals. I've found that all the best deals we find come from the MLS listings. People are telling you to go after short sales, go to auctions do this do that. Blah, blah, blah, blah. I don't understand why you would do any of that. The deals we are buying and finding are bank owned properties. It doesn't get better than that. If you buy from the bank, you are buying from the source. I see short sales listied in the MLS everyday. They are still priced high. I've gone back and done property history reports on deals we've purchased and found that most of the ones we've bought were once listed as short sales prior to being foreclosed. We just made an offer on one that expired on July 1 and was listed for $89,900 as a short sale. We're getting it for $24,900 as a foreclosure. That is quite a difference, wouldn't you agree. What can you do with an extra $65,000 in your account? If you follow my advice, you can invest in two or three additional deals.
My experience with banks is horrible. Have you tried contacting them these days? I have, and I've waited on hold for hours trying to get through. We own a dozen rental properties which we've aquired steadily over the past nine years or so.We buy and sell as the market dictates. We have several right now that we are upside down in because of the falling house values in the market. I've attempted to reach the Lender with the intention of doing a short sale. I've had absolutley no luck. My intent is to sell these and use that money to get into better deals. We have homes that have $125,000 mortgaged against that rent for $1100 per month. Great deal at the time. Now that is a horrible deal in this market. In the Metro Atlanta market, we're gettting deals under $45,000 that all rent between $900 and $1200 per month. The point is that, the banks do not have the man power to handle the flood of calls they receive each day. They get calls from people wanting to modify their loans, do short sales, make payment deals, you name it. You wait on hold and finally get someone who can't help you. The banks have no choice but to foreclose because they cannot properly assist their customers. Thats why the foreclosure, bank owned REO is the only way to buy these days.
I suggest, you find a good Realtor in your market, tell them what you are looking for and buy some deals. Tell them to stay away from short sales, you don't have the time to waste dealing with these. Tell them to stay away from auctioned homes, they have the prices artificially inflated because all rookie investors bid on them. Most of these auctioned deals get put back on the MLS anyway because they winning bidder typically cannot close. You get a rookie investor bidding these deals up, who think they can go get a loan and buy the deal with no money out of their pocket. Not in this market! You need cash or funds from your IRA or 401k. We'll get into that in another time. The point is that we see deals go off the market and at some point they come back. We just saw one that we lost to an auction in April. It was listed in the MLS for $34,900. We offered $29,000 for it. Didn't get it, the listing agent told me it had been moved to an auction site. Guess what, it came back on the market last week. It wasn't listed for $34,900. It was newly listed for $24,900. We bid and got it for $21,000. The banks have no clue what they are doing. If you are patient and don't get personal with these deals, you'll come out ahead. We got that particulat deal for $8,000 less than we committed to just 3 months prior.
This market is amazing and will continue to be for awhile, not forever though. There are many fortunes that will be made here during the next 18 months or so. I hope you "get off your Donkey" and get in this game while you can make yours.