She went off saying how everyone of us so called "investors" are just a bunch of scam artists looking to twist the arms of property owners in hopes of stealing their property for a ridiculous price and then make money off of it.  

Are you sure that that department of human rights really called you ... and it wasn't just that tenant or friend who called, pretending to be that department to scam you out of 1 months rent?

The other thing to look at is what kind of time you have to devote if you plan to self manage; this niche takes more time.

In any case, posting on craigslist will only get you scammed.

I hear there are a lot of private lending scams out there.  

We were very very careful to make sure this wouldn't happen because of all the interest in the property and it's common for people to pull these shenanigans to get a property under contract and accepted for a ridiculous price and then later back out and reduce the offer for the "appraised value" so we wrote a special clause into our counter proposal.On top of all this the roofer that I had hired took my $1k and ran off with the material money and also hired and scammed another roofing company that tore off the existing roof.

I was laid off from my energy sector job a few weeks ago and have decided to devote full time to this venture that has been on my heart and mind for as long as I can remember. 

There is a large brokerage firm and a few newsletters devoted to our industry that attempts to give some average purchase CAP rates.  

So, you get a shady tenant who games the system, cheats landlords as a practice, and a company that helps them with the scam.

Reach out to them to get copies.I think the IRS help companies are scams so do not try to go that route.