Biggest mistake of my life, was not keeping 50 or so more of the 500 I flipped in Cleveland, cost me millions.  

Keep in mind as well that a ton of OOS investor make the mistake about buying a turnkey property because of the numbers but end up buying the best house in the WORST neighborhood.

You are making a common mistake of failing to set a deadline.When I want a response from my tenant, I set a deadline and a consequence for failing to respond."

You have no experience in STR's, so before you make a huge mistake and buy a property, arbitrage may be a good option to "Get your hands dirty" without losing your shirt. 

Sorry but that's another mistake, it should have been worded, not out within say 2 days of closing, the money is sent to meGood luck 

I asked how he wanted to structure late fees since there was no language in the contract about that (newbie mistake big time!!).

It's pointless to ask "what-if-I-fall" because you will 100%, I guarantee you WILL make mistakes, there will be failings, and as long as you mitigate them into a safe setting so they are survivable ones, like learning to ride a bike in a lawn vs out on a highway, or in REI using an experienced REI Realtor/Consultant and experienced PM's vs on own for everything, your going to get through it and be all the better for the experience. 

The process is to flip the cash (you don't flip properties, you flip cash...and make no mistake,...the property isn't the true asset, you cash is) through SFH as described above, then build your cash to roll it into the NNN for the long hall.You have to have a plan, and that plan must be based on numbers with $$$ in front. 

I think one area people also make the mistake of is spending money on a guru before they even know if this is what they want to do.

The second biggest risk in syndication is the financial modelling.1) an experienced syndication that is purchasing during 2020 would have greater market risk than inexperienced-slacker syndicator that purchase during 2015 only and get out of the market in 2020.2) an first time syndication that has fixed debt 40% LTV value-add buying at cap 6 with DSCR 1.5 on year 1 ; would perform better than so called experienced syndication that purchase with floating using 80% LTV with DSCR 1.1 buying cap 3 during purchase.The key thing here is doing DD in the T12 and which one has the most conservative underwriting model.Most basic mistake by LP is filtering syndication based on IRR expectation, but that itself is marketing ploy that you can't rely on.You keep saying there's this experienced and inexperienced sponsor, in reality, the good sponsor during 2015-2020 also got wiped out if they purchase during 2020-2022 using bad financial modelling LOL