Personal Guarantee, collateraliz other assets, do military owners.

It's no guarantee but it's a good place to start.

I definitely don't like the idea of putting $10k up front for a program that is not guaranteed to work.

I guarantee you'll learn a lot from this platform. 

You might be able to get some random Edison technician to say, "Well, I guess it would be okay," after eyeballing it, but that's no guarantee that after you buy the property, Edison or Long Beach or someone comes along and says you can't. 

You will need 20-25% down and a commercial loan for the rest.Most lenders will want to lend to an LLC with you personally guaranteeing the loan.Typically, each MFR would be purchased under its own LLC, for liability purposes.Each LLC would then also need its own bank accounts for collecting rents and paying expenses.

See if they have a money back guarantee.

I think you believed that requiring automatic payments set up would guarantee you on-time payments in some way.

I see too often that aspiring investors think real estate will be a much more passive source of income than your job, but I can almost guarantee you that you will extremely active especially when starting out. 

To suggest there aren't quality assets in those cities you mentioned I would virtually guarantee is faulty, as everywhere has something of value.