As you can see I am a brand new player in real-estate investment, so I just started to read Brandon Turner's book: Rental Property Investing.

What was important was Trust, good planning, good communication, honesty, integrity of all players, your prior due diligence, personal awareness & to just proceed w caution on each step yes... but move forward and Proceed on!

What are the criteria that makes someone a top player and what would you suggest are the not obvious ways to get to the top?

Nothing worse than homeowner showing up on a whim and trying to dominate the entire meeting with their own personal issues. 

Engineers and the zoning dept know the big players , you bring something to them and lots of times , they "accidently" tell one of the players and the property gets sold in a day .

@Kevin ChristensenAll the big players Fannie, Freddie, HUD, are going to have a not assignable clause in their contracts.

Some big players throwing money into this market

The best I found for a fixed rate 30 year LLC loan was a bank that could do mine for 6.2% with 2 points and 75% LTV & this bank doesn't look at tax returns.

@Dominic FlintWith a condo you need to check the financial condition of the condo association, as well as determine if a large number of units are owned by one person, because then they will control the association.

Who are the real players who close on deals and what areas of the city they buy in.