Since the the housing market has appreciated so rapidly over the last few years, the wholesale business margins have gotten very thin and will continue to get thinner within the next year or two.If you want to start wholesaling properties with a lot of meat on the bone (profits), I would suggest looking East and Inland towards some of the areas where the affordable housing has shifted to such as Inland Empire, High Desert, Coachella Valley and any other markets that always tend to ride on the coattails of the Metro markets such as Los Angeles. 

I believe it tends to give me a slightly lower return, because the sponsor is going to be more careful, and if there is a severe downturn will prevent me from taking catastrophic losses.

I am not quite sure what this means yet, but I was thinking more along the lines of @Evan Polaski and pretty much treating this like it is owned by a mom and pop where good records tend to not be kept. 

Few of them have packed schedules anymore (which tends to be a very common topic of conversation), and most of them are happy to spend as much time chatting as they do working.

So there’s a good chance aluminum still in use today is pretty old by now, and electrical systems don’t improve much with age like wine and women do (my opinion on the latter but fact-based for electrical wires and wine).

Over time they tend to wear down and it just becomes cheaper to replace than to rehab. 

You are concerned about the work involved in real estate investing, but the people who do "active" investing tend to be PASSIONATE about it.

I am interested in joining forces with other landlords to send a message to our governor, senators and congressmen and women to let them know that we want our rights protected as property owners. 

While regulations and guidelines do tend to stay consistent at their root, they do change.

As engineers we tend to focus on things we can grasp with numbers and conversations, which is why I am wondering what you guys think is a good idea.