They'd likely purchase a lot of it on Amazon/Ikea then fly there and stay there for a week or so while outfitting it as a rental.

You will get the minimum 50% if you select the best shop for training and mentoring, but it is well worth it.Once you have learned the skills you need (at least 2 years), seek out a guy like me (in VT obviously) who has a tiny outfit, but can pay you more of a split because the "little guys" costs are much cheaper than the Big Box ones.

It was pretty routine, the bigger outfits around here knew me I was in there so much.

Check out these folks... http://www.noradarealestate.com/  They seem to be a legit outfit and I have been having conversations with them for quite some time.

There are some good outfits (and many not so good). 

I attributed the price difference to 'scarcity': there is only one outfit around who provides the continuous run panels ... they show-up with their truck and crank them out much like how seamless eaves are rolled and shaped.

Now it doesn't require an Ivy League MBA to do that but somehow you need to acquire the knowledge of how the numbers work on an income property deal, before your deposit goes hard.You can hire someone with the knowledge to do the due diligence and number crunching (like us) but even then we educate our clients enough to understand and be comfortable with the numbers in their deals because ultimately it's their money on the line.BTW, these days even single family investors are competing against the real estate MBAs at Blackstone, Colony, Wayne Hughes' outfit and the like who are out there buying up REOs to rent.

There are the big outfits like New Westrn.

This is a very succesful creative investor who has grown a pretty large outfit and now has about 5 agents throughout the state.They do what I was already doing but on a larger scale so I can integrate well with that.

SFH are always going to get more $/ft2 than MFH, but the multi will likely cost you more (especially if you are outfitting to the same level of details), as your building two kitchens, two electrical systems, two piping systems, two HVAC systems, etc.