One possibility is building a duplex in Peoria, while it's not the best rental market, getting a duplex at a possibly much cheaper price than market value is extremely appealing.

If the software is not simplifying your life or making you more accurate, you shouldn't use it.Software does have extremely helpful features like online payments, marketing syndication (click a button and your property is advertised on multiple sites), electronic document review/signing, maintenance tracking, and owner reports.

They don't even sell courses.So, Licensing Experts definitely aren't a guru. 

They are an amazing value at almost 40% of stick built cost and are built extremely well these days.  

California has extremely high home prices, Taxes and HOA's in some places.

And I struggle through the expert interviews. 

Verifying last 2 years of rental history and income extremely important to find the “best of the worst”.Make sure you understand the Class of properties you are looking at and the corresponding results to expect.The City of Detroit has 183 Neighborhoods we’ve analyzed.DM us if you’d like to discuss this logical approach in greater detail!

I used a heloc to purchase the first 4 rentals, so $155k of dept is wrapped up In  that until I refinance each property which have already appreciated extremely quickly given the current market. 

Remember, the notion of amassing wealth without investing is a dangerous myth perpetuated by self-proclaimed experts.

My experience in the last 15 years is that except in the most extreme circumstances, an investor is going to need some of their own capital to make a deal fly.