How can I find ugly houses - wholesale/condemned... in NYC or the immediate area?

10 million people in NYC. At least 10,000 of them have the Carlton Sheets tapes and are pursuing the same homes as you would be..

Even the most undesirable areas in NYC are going to be prime targets for flip transactions. NYC is an expensive real estate market to cut your teeth.

Your best bet are smaller college towns where the real estate market is more affordable and there are a lot of tenants who can rent if the market tanks before you can sell for a profit.

Most investors who live in large cities prefer to invest in these smaller towns. However, they do not have the stomach to deal with tenants. They want turn-key investment properties (in other words, they do not want to invest a lot of time or money to fix up bad homes) and great management companies. If you are willing to do the dirty work to renovate the properties, it may be worth $5K to $10K beyond the cost of the repairs. If the home is $500,000 this premium is only 1 or 2 % of the price to an investor who doesn't want to get dirty. If the home is $100,000 this is 5 to 10% of the price, which is a nice return.

My advice: find a nice college town with a pretty vibrant real estate market. Buy an older home, modernize, renovate, fill up with paying tenants, and sell for 25% to 50% more than you paid. Net after repair costs should be 10 to 20%.

Stay away from NYC unless you have a lot of $$$ to lose!

The competition for these houses is overwhelming as it is in many urban areas throughout the USA. The last downturn put home ownership further and further away from the working class and opened up a new market for rentals. But this also means a greater amount of competition for those rentals from the ownership class and the spoils go to the quick.

I recommend doing a drive around. This means you get in your car in an area where you already know property values are low but on the upswing. Find a likely property, one that obviously not lived in and take down the address.Then find GoMaps and look up the owner, look up the owner's contact information on Google or Yahoo and make initial contact.

You will need to make your offer time sensitive. When I have done this, all have succeeded in doing 9 out of 10 times is to push the property owner into hiring a realtor, which immediately wipes out any superior discount you may have received. It is that one out of ten you need.

Good luck!