I thought I would see all kinds of crazy predictions, but no, you can easily discern who has experience in real estate and, shall we say has less.

A discerning property manager should be able to provide quality service for less though, if they carefully select their clients.       

A skill in real estate dealmaking is recognizing the scope and scale of problems and discerning the gap between principals understanding of the severity and reality.If the knowledge gap is small, and they are super motivated, you can offer structure a deal to take off the market, manage expectation and control the asset while you solve the problems.If they're in la-la-land and think they can do better, best to decide if you'd ever want in the deal then, if yes,be patient while tgey knock themselves out mash it around.Most any real estate problem can be fixed with enough to money.

My challenge is being able to quickly discern what of the direct mail responses are 'potential' deals and what are not.

What questions can I ask to discern the Cash Buyer from a Wholesaler?

For example, I am able to discern odors better than my husband.

Thanks @Derek Carroll that is what I am trying to discern...would you mind expanding a bit on how you figure I am double counting...this is the information I am after.

Since I wasn't receiving any discernible ROI from my association with the brokerage we parted ways after a little over a year.

When you drive by you cannot discern that it is one parcel.  

As I've continued to research and grow my network I see the discernment you're describing coming into play.