Private (hard) money might help with renovation but will be pricey.

I've heard many places have desk fees or training cost, and there seem to be tools on the market commonly in use (Crexi, Costar, Buildout, etc), that make commercial real estate information more accessible than it normally would be.

If they need access to the property immediately, you can offer to leave to them until you are ready to close. 

- Do you have reserves or access to capital to make repairs/updates to the property?

The key to this is finding a HML that doesn't require access to the property for an appraisal.

I can see AI as being potentially super helpful with many RE tasks.

To me personally as well I found it was more important for what I do to cultivate commerical bankers and those relationships so I could get access to bank rate capital and lots of it !!

Might be a little bit down the road for me, but that is for sure dream that will come true...One Chicago's best features is the lake, which I'd like more access to.

How can I verify this company is legit? 

@Stanley Nguyen there really isn't a way around this.