Mine was a HUD, I wont do one of those again though a huge inventory is about to be released on the market any week now.
I paid 120k after expenses, have put 7k into it and will end up around 10k. The house next door sold for 165k after a month on the market.
As far as margins go, that isnt huge, but Ill take it.
The best place to find properties is word of mouth. If you can find someone about to be foreclosed on in which you buy out the balance of the mortgage and give them some start up cash and assume their acquired equity, you can find much larger margins. This requires more liquidity, a network of informants, a good knowledge of true market values... not Testa page print outs, and more risk.
For a first one, especially if you are doing an owner occupied, HUD isn’t a bad way to go, just don’t expect a huge profit when you sell the property. Just make sure you don’t pay too much. HUD's goal is to sell the property as close to comp value as possible even if it has no flooring/appliances/etc.