Conventional lending on first rental property -- advice?

[Keith Anderson]

We're headed down the path to purchasing our first rental property via a well-known turnkey provider. They've recommended a lender to us, and we're at the pre-qualification stage.

We're likely to buy 2 properties this year, each in the $90k-$150k range. We had planned to put 25% down on each, but the turnkey operator is suggesting 35-40% is more common.

I've been looking for guides to financing rental property and not finding much. Does anyone have any reference material I've somehow missed? 

Here are some specific questions we have:

• How do you evaluate a lender? There are no mentions of this company on Google or BP, which surprises me a bit given the scale of this turnkey provider and their referral.
• How important is it to shop around for a loan on a property like this? If it's important, how can we find a few other solid lenders that are familiar with
• Should we try to time pre-quals or loan applications within a tight window to minimize hard pulls looking sketchy on our credit report? I'm wary of proceeding with this first lender ASAP without having others lined up to compare them to.
• My wife & I each hope to eventually have 10 loans in our personal names as part of our long-term portfolio strategy. Should I leave her out of this loan application process or is it OK to list her as a co-borrower?

Appreciate any insight or guidance. Sorry if these are obvious; we actually rent, so this is our first mortgage.