I personally concur .. they charge 6k to join the club they bring in folks who have no experience and set them lose.. with so called training..

I used to live in the lower mainland but invested where the numbers work like Vancouver Island or Northern BC.

If your current lender is open to restructuring, you could negotiate better terms (lower rate or extended term).

As for by-the-room rentals, many lenders won't allow that and if they do, they qualify you off of the long term market rents (which, as I'm sure you can imagine, would be considerably lower than the actual per-room rents).

The more hands off you get, the lower the returns.

Most renters cannot (or will not) take proper care of a pool.So...if you decide to go for a pool property, make sure you have it maintained...and charge it to the tenant.

So when I get multiple bids and one is significantly lower, I don't think of them as a deal.

Also make sure to build on a property located in a desirable location with larger pop density and if holding for rentals, charge median rent for that market as lenders want to see a bigger pool of buyers/renters available to occupy/sell. 

Their main sales pitch is that they will teach you how to make more money by charging your investors double the industry average acquisition fee.  

For the lower value properties they generally create less tax savings and it may not be worth it.