I'm told the screening criteria credit score is on the higher end .But most of the listings I see are also on the same league.

The term Certified Broker is intentionally deceptive in my view. 

You need to take a longer-term view of how it's likely to perform in the future.

If you don't have a crazy house like a potato, a tremendous view or historical area, then choosing a pic is harder.I like the idea of the game room if that is your best feature.

In my mind the partner who contributes and shares across the board will have a greater alignment of interests but curious how others have approached similar scenarios and views on the subject.

As a busy 9-to-5 worker, a property management company can streamline rent collection, tenant screening, and maintenance, though they charge 8–12% of rent.

And the changes, such as regulation, city development, traffic flow, building views etc happen very quickly. 

Figure out a question set that helps dive into their expertise as investor-friendly agents, ask about their experience in the investment real estate space, and have them send you a few properties that could meet your goals to show that they can provide quality properties for your to analyze (hint: this is also good to see if they overpromised on their market [ex - Raleigh for cash flow]).Also with the new lawsuit, any agent that knows what they're doing will require you to sign an agency agreement prior to viewing a home.

With enough knowledge you can make a educated decision on which approach you take.My experience:I personally don't sign up for any program who take you aside during events and try to sell packages that is just blatant sales strategy.Once you sign up there is every attempt to make you sign for their programs for bookkeeping, registered agent, LLC or corp setup fee which have ridiculous even with platinum membership.Basic standard structure they suggest to take advantage of multiple deductions can be easily achieved by proper education or work with a good firm like https://wcginc.com  who is local to you.A umbrella C-crop to manage all other LLC properties and take advantage of many tax deductions that are not available with a llc, its also used to take losses up to 100K as startup expenses and dissolve the entity after few years.Few LLC entities for investing in Real Estate, etc preferably in Wyoming or Nevada ( you can find many companies online who can do this for $150 compared to anderson $1500-$3000) , they will claim they have a secret Operating agreement which is bogus.They certainly try to take advantage of tax loopholes and claim to be smart people, my view they are just taking advantage of numbers as per their own statements.

in my country real estate is not something that is so common,so was asking about the about the degree with the view that it would perhaps get me in track for real estate business.