I have a little experience with investing, but I'm still a novice in many areas.

You were wise to put the question to BP - if you listen only to the single family novices in your circles, you will continue to only make single family profits.    

This group may provide the unbiased opinion I'm looking for, whether it's finding and evaluating deals, performing due diligence, handling a tenant or city issue, legal issues, accounting tips, or something else I have no idea about right now.It also seems that seasoned investors know how to do a rehab for much less than a novice rehabber can - whether through bulk material orders or bulk labor, or both.

I'm a novice investor in the SF area too.

I recently found myself a mentor and this how I did: "I am a novice REI, I have taken the basics of REI courses, have done extensive studying of my own and I would like to offer you a business proposition....."

@Pedro Tavares short of getting paperwork from the homeowner, are there any specifics that a novice such as myself can look for to tell the difference between mobile and modular?

The same sort of thing can be said about new and novice note investors.  

Hello and welcome to BP,there is an enormous amount of resources here for anyone in the real estate investment business, whether seasoned, newbie or novice. take your time and fully explore the site. they have been making plenty of upgrades over the past year or so that make the site a bit more user friendly...anyway, be sure to enter keywords and key phrases on your profile page, so that you're put on email notice whenever someone mentions housing markets and other r.e. particulars  that you're involved in or that you're interested in learning more about. this is just one of many very cool tools here on BP. feel free to interact on threads, share your thoughts, knowledge and enjoy.

Hi, I'm a novice investor starting the process to acquire my 2nd rental property. 

Hello BP,   My name is Will Johnson.  I live in DuPage County IL (just outside Chicago).  I joined BP because I am just getting into the real estate investing game and I want to learn as much as I can.  I have some ve...