I went through multiple management companies, contractors, realtors, etc.... to find the few good ones that I have.Probably the most important ingredient is the property manager, they can make or break your out of state investment.

My friend has about 10k in capital and is very willing to manage and improve on a property but has no idea how to obtain a mortgage or put together even the simplest of deals.

@Dave Holman Using the simplest math and if this is a single asset LLC: $100k asset, $50k liability, $50k value. 10% interest should cost $5k... and new partner would be sharing 10% profit/loss.

I"d say the 7-8 cap is a real possibility here if you are good at interpreting balance sheets and income statements to see the potential in a property rather than looking at what the numbers are in their simplest form.  

The key ingredient is making sure to buy the properties right so that if there is a downturn in the market, you're still able to make money.Please let me know if you'd like to know about specific opportunities.

The time to spend money on your training is when you seek niche specific expertise.The missing ingredient is massive, effective action.

The missing ingredient that's never talked about in any entrepreneurial venture is "armor" and what I mean is reading Bio's, success stories which BiggerPockets has a whole forum on that.I currently use the MLS to get my deals.

The simplest is that you get an incorrect report or an insufficient report from a lousy vendor.  

Why I'm joining the BP community:  I love that the gurus are nowhere to be found, and we can have frank discussions about even the simplest of topics. 

Most of them aren't the most user-friendly and the simplest mistake will mean that you'll spend hours trying to track it down.Most of the systems I've been testing are missing something.