Sadly, we're an industry of amateurs, so you've really got to be careful who you do business with so you don't waste time or money working with someone leading you nowhere.Ultimately, you'll want an agent who has their finger on the pulse of the market... have they conducted research on all available rental properties in the area?

This is all new to me and I understand this is likely an amateur question. 

@Maurice Giro one thing to keep in mind, if you are considering jumping into syndication, is that during markets like the one that we’re in, what it does is it sifts out the professionals from the amateurs.

If you think hiring a professional is expensive, wait till you hire an amateur!

Hire a pro and let them handle it, or hire amateurs, buy your own materials, but don’t be surprised when you end up paying more for less quality then have to do it all over again because the job was botched horribly.  

War zone and D grade properties have a tendency to look great on paper but in actuality they are management intensive and pay out poor - most amateur investors that invest in these areas either tout their ROI ex.

This type of scam is definitely not done by an amateur; retaining your former landlords bank information is not common.

@Allan Rosso I'm admittedly a complete amateur on the subject, but I believe the bank now owns it.

I then realized in a few months that 1-40 unit deals had horrible pricing because all the amateurs were involved and the ones that looked good from a per unit price prospective were under 80% occupied and had ISSUES.

Or do you want to keep being an amateur?