Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

Regarding your mastermind idea...I strongly suggest you come to our Chicago meetup this coming Saturday...we switched up to a mastermind format, and if you like it, we could figure out a way to partner up and start a suburb version.Here is a link to the meetup:  https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/521/topics/1230572-chic...RSVP'd thanks for the heads up🙂 

Is it as simple as driving around and figuring it out?  

Just figure out a strategic partner and you can still have exposure to it. 

It's mostly Class A properties, a few Class B.You may find the below copy & paste info useful in addressing your question:----------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

One of my CFO clients just refinanced 40 of his properties (20 of them are S8) in the Midwest and he cashed out 7 figures!

Now, you need to figure out how to find deals and pay for them.

I would rather not go to multiple lenders trying to figure out who does what if someone on here has had good experience with a particular lender already that does this type of loans.

Once you have figured out the first 2, the last questions will fall into place.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?