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You always have to watch for scammers but they aren't that big an issue.

The reason sellers cannot sell these properties through the traditional market is often due to certain issues, and 98% of the time, these issues are not beneficial to you as a buyer.

Part of my issue was not having a reasonably priced handyman ahead of time and eventually overpaying to just get it done and also inexperience as a manager.With that said, you essentially have two options: very cheap properties in less good areas (you're looking at 100k or less--which you might have trouble getting a good lender for)  or trying to do some sort of house hack (e.g. live in flip, live in rent by the room, multifamily) where you budget will be closer to 200k-300k.Personally, I would not look at real estate until you are maxing out your 401k and IRA, but lots of folks have done significantly better with real estate than stocks and would think I'm crazy for suggesting this.

You are micro-analyzing the minutia of each offering, but that's not really the issue.

Various repair issues, bad tenant, and now this issue.

I've been teetering around the idea of house hacking once I am done with college, but a big issue I have come across when speaking to a mortgage broker is the fact that I need to prove 2x of the mortgage in monthly income.

Check out this bigger pockets link below for that question. https://www.biggerpockets.com/guides/ultimate-real-estate-investing-guide

@Venecia BaezIf you can invest locally do that if not look elsewhere. 9 times out of 10 when people are stuck and unable to take action I usually see people worrying about things that either won't happen or aren't an issue.

Here's a link to the data:  https://mred.stats.10kresearch.com/infoserv/s-v1/vwxD-yIT2.