Apartment Building Investing Questions

[Brandon Bellino]

Hi! My name is Brandon, I am 21 years old and real estate is my passion. I am currently going to college for business, and plan to move to NYC at the end of next year when I graduate to start out as an agent. I'm not interested in being an agent long term, I simply want to use it as a stepping stone to network, learn the industry, and save some money to start what I'm really interested in - investing. Preferably, I want to start out buying several multifamily homes, duplexes/triplexes, to learn how to handle tenants and how to be a landlord and such, and then I'd like to move to larger apartment buildings. Now that I've given a little background on myself, I have a few questions for the community that I'm a little curious about. I consume tons of information on all aspects of real estate, for both education and fun because I genuinely enjoy real estate, but there's not a lot of information out there that I've found on the things I'm curious about so I figure you probably just need to gain the hands on experience to learn it. 

First thing I'm curious about is - How do people find deals outside of their area? I plan on relocating from upstate New York to NYC, but I do not want to invest there, not right away anyways. So how do people find potential deals in other areas, other states? I know there are sites like Loopnet, but there has to be other and better ways I'm sure. 

Second thing I'd like some input on is - How does getting investors for larger deals work? More specifically, how does the "profit sharing" aspect of it work, as in who gets how much of the profits? Say you find a deal you want to make that requires $500,000, some to be used as a down payment and the rest used for operating funds, and you put down $100,000 yourself and your silent investor puts down the other $400,000. How is it figured out who gets how much of the profits? Does the investor get the majority of the profits since they put up the majority of the down payment? Or do you get the majority because you are technically the "owner" of the property and will be handling the actual running of the property? Or are the profits simply split 50/50? 

Sorry if what I'm asking is a little out of the ballpark, I tend to overthink things. I'm just the type of person to want to know every single aspect of things front to back.