Not really sure how to go about financing but we're planning on having a down payment at or slightly above $100,000 and don't want to pay more than $3100ish per month. 

Happy to jump on a call sometime and talk through these things and perhaps help narrow it down.

It's great that you're focused on saving and educating yourself before diving into real estate.

I am changing the locks over on all of my units at each turnover.

I've been on RentRedi since the early days of its inception.

Also, focus on 2 years of job/income stability.Class D Properties:Cashflow vs Appreciation: Typically, all cashflow with little, maybe even negative, relative rent & value appreciationVacancy Est: 20%+ should be used to cover nonpayment, evictions & damages.Tenant Pool: majority will have FICO scores under 560 (almost 30% probability of default), little to no good tradelines, lots of collections & chargeoffs, recent evictions.

Jay,You mentioned total loss on syndication deals. 

Is there debt on the property or are you doing all cash?

I don't know how the really big players stomach it.Something else I failed to mention was how the PM's are also tacking on fees on top of rent to extract even more money from our tenants. 

Determine the price that attracts the investor, stop the bleeding and and move on.