And then, as you mention, when talking with syndicators, ask them who their competitors are, this may give you a few new groups to look into.

Differentiate your rental like @John Underwood mentioned- amenities, prime location, benchmark on your competitors.

You don't need to spend on premium listing.Secondly, you need to find out whether any listings (whether yours or other agent's) with the name of your selected property appears in the search result page when you search for the name of the location/neighborhood.If any listing with the name of your selected property is appearing in the first page of the search result, then you don't need to spend on premium listing.Now, you might be wondering how your direct competitors' listings, appearing in the first page of the search result for the name of the location/neighbourhood, favor your listing.Here is how your prospects can reach your listing:When a prospect searches for a property by typing in or selecting the suggested location/neighbourhood in the search bar of the portal site, the first page of the search result can include other agents' listings of apartment units (for example) in the same building where you also have one unit that you are promoting.Now, lets say your listing does not appear in the first page and the prospect does not dig in to the second page, but she checks out one of your direct competitors' listing.

I am doing this quite some time, I know a competitor and my offer was cash.

Why would I need to go "toe-to-toe" with someone who isn't even a competitor?

Sorry to hear about your experience with one of my competitors, @Ram Srinivasan.

For a point of reference, I'm reviewing a $20M budget from a competitor and there's all of $25,000 of furniture and another 420 units of stoves and dishwashers. 

There is a high demand in Duluth, and one of our competitors recently quit the business because the City of Duluth is so difficult to work with. 

If the investor is not happy with the service they can go do one of his competitors and he looses all that business.

<$50k is the range where you will find that it's tough to even find a normal vanilla loan that small.In your case, since that wouldn't work anyways, this is in the "call a friend" and/or "swipe some credit cards" range of options.