I just do not think he understands what everything entailed.

CoC return entails a loan, so if you want to use that as the metric, you will need to provide what your financing terms and rate will be as well as the price range and expected LTV.

This entails building personal / working relationships with people successful in the field.

Plenty of people (agents included) can come up with pie-in-the-sky ideas of how to change and improve a house, but few have a real understanding of what that work entails, what challenges will need to be overcome, and how long it will all take and what it will all cost. ...how did this agent know all this info?

Just assert your rights to the road (while being polite).

@Robert Herrera - With all due respect, I must take exception with two of your assertions.

This entails building personal / working relationships with people successful in the field.

Using debt to purchase income producing asserts is a sound strategy especially if you can build equity or force appreciation to quickly pay off the loan. 

Everything in life entails risks and costs (whether actual or "opportunity"). 

It shouldn’t make much of a tax difference if you did cap-ex before it was a rental, added it to your basis to be depreciated over 27.5 years (watch that first year calculation since you’re not using the whole year.) or if you’re spending cap-ex after it became a entail and depreciating it.