It teaches you marketing, how to find a real deal and puts you in touch with the players in your market.  

Try competing with that as a private investor doing direct mail. 

I want to make sure that number one, real estate is something that I am passionate about, and number two, I am adequately knowledgeable to compete in this industry.Here are my burning questions:1.)

Usually in my experience, deals that start bad only end bad and most times even worse There will be other deals that are "more perfect" fit for you and without the pressure of competing offers.

Hey Maurice McNeil I am a professional basketball player too and I also invest in metro Detroit.

Usually they want 3 recent non-distressed sales and 3 current competing listings.

Everyone (buyers) wants to do it, no one (sellers) wants to take those offers over the competing 25%-35% down professional REI offers.Some people have luck with properties that are SFRs on paper, but still have rental potential. 

As a rule of two great service providers for each task, I am looking for your recommendation to find a Real Estate Attorney that is competent and experience in greater new haven area, and hopefully the fee is also reasonable. 

I didn't realize you weren't local, I would just make sure that you have a lot of trust in your GC and level of competency.  

Because in some of these cases you will start competing with institutional players (like Life Insurance cos.) who can tolerate much lower returns and will outbid you on the purchase.