I want to buy a small apartment complex, what do I need to learn?

[Brandon Lee]

Hi,

I move around too much for my job to do the normal route of buying up SFR/MFRs and managing them before moving on to a new deal, so I would like just jump in and buy a small apartment complex and get a property manager right off the bat to manage it. I think owning a large property that is out of state with one property manager would likely be easier than multiple smaller ones (and I can't even imagine keeping track of multiple PM's). Since I travel anyway I'm fine expanding my search to the entire US rather than my local area (I'm near the midwest right now).

I have about 130-170k in stocks that I could pull for a deal like this.  I'd like to go it alone for my first purchase if possible (i.e. not form syndicate).  

I read the beginner pockets guide and their article on finding commercial deals; I've also done a little bit of snooping online to try and understand the process (loan types, etc.).  Other real estate knowledge comes from reading on reddit and some youtube videos by graham stephan, a lot of this is more geared towards residential so I don't know how much of this carries over to commercial RE.

However, I'm not sure what to look for, how to value things, what to look for in a property manager, the commercial RE loan process, etc.  I could really use some advice.