I recently talked to one of the main real estate agency companies in my hometown.

In this case if you're the one with the lack of capital, you could be the one putting in the work to source and structure the deals. 

Different agencies or? 

Initiating a conversation with a seller by presenting an offer under these terms can raise concerns, signaling, "I lack funds and need a favor."

So for lack of better phrasing, I need to know where the "good" low income areas are.. if any, and where I truly need to avoid going. 

Try Goosehead Insurance -- they are a brokerage (not a single agency)  started by investors because they were not finding the products they needed. 

When any little hiccup comes along that most of us did not financially prepare for we Demand the GuvMint do something, like my stock portfolio dropped 25% today in 10/87, so drop interest rate to Zero, thanks Maestro Greenspan, or again in 3/2000 when Yahoo.com didn't somehow grow into its projected 30 trillion dollar market cap based on its PE of 700, drop rates to Zero and keep 'em there for 22 years except for brief interludes of sanity (inflation got above 2%), or in 2008 when no one with a pension fund in America took any damn responsibility/oversight and gave their retirement funds to crooks to buy whatever ratings agency rubber stamped dogshit inverse synthetic CDO they could get a commission on, then were shocked, laying on their fainting couch clutching their pearls when the financial system reliably imploded, so drop rates to Zero again and start Monetizing/printing the debt, and now with the most predicted pandemic in history, Americans hadn't saved a damn cent so we cried to the GuvMint, send us 7 Trillion dollars now, I need a new Lambo!

I've sold properties to investors who hold portfolios and for lack of better word the properties are all trash and then I've dealt with some who have a well-oiled machine.

Separate from the lack of necessary information, I'm not aware of any market in this country that can support the costs of ground up construction, particularly in the scale you are envisioning  where 2 bedroom units are renting for $1400 without significant subsidies.

It was the fact that their interest rates were way below market rates.With all of that said- the challenge with NACA is the lack of a sense of urgency, poor follow-up, unavailability,  and a bad reputation with some listing agents  When you complete the training provided by NACA you then have to go out in the real world to get a deal done.