It is not asking to much to ask to meet first and to be blunt, if someone you can't afford a $800 round trip to go out and at least meet a potential PM and agent and check out the area then........yes deals in some area of Cleveland happen very fast....but it's not an excuse to not fly out there.

I heard in a podcast that the inventory of homes is back to pre-pandemic levels in some areas and I have noticed more price cuts in general -  but that's mostly the greedy sellers trying to list their homes for way more than the current market value of the home.

Most guru's try to create short-cuts that don't exist.

In 2018, I had the opportunity to be on the cutting edge of something new—I bought one of the first 9-bedroom lakeview properties in the Branson area.

Let's assume the seller shows you T12 numbers, but they knew they were selling so cut their insurance from full coverage to minimum coverage, they stopped doing any repair that could be deferred, they have an in-house handyman that does all turns, and didn't book any expense to those.  

(personally, I use a brokerage account so I can get the pretty risk-free 5.25% in a money market fund that is completely liquid).To be blunt, if you really are limited in funds... 

@Nadir M. many PMCs post samples of the management contracts on their websites.So, you can download a bunch, sort through them and then cut & paste what works for you.You will still NEED to have an experienced real estate attorney review for final approval to make sure its compliant with state and local statutes. 

Indiana has state tax too, but far lower than Ca.Since I no longer had a day job I became REI pro and cut my income tax to a fraction of what it was.

In my areas if you cut down certain trees during your build you must replace them and new trees are $200+ for decent ones plus the cost of labor, that can add up.

Its probably because they don't want you contacting the applicant to cut them out of the deal.