I'm out West at the moment, but will probably be returning to Tokyo before too much longer.At the risk of being contrarian, after picking up a couple of investment properties in Japan (one Tokyo, one outskirts), I shifted to a strategy of only investing in the US. 

Painting, for instance- an amatuer could take their time and paint a house over the course of a couple weeks and do a great job, but a professional crew could do the entire job in a day. 

I remember a saying someone told me a couple of decades ago that convey's to real estate investing: "If you've been sitting at the poker table for 15 minutes and you can't figure out who the patsy is, you're the patsy!"

If so, I'd like to connect and get pricing for a couple of permits out here in FL.

Now, I’m curious about real estate investing.I have some experience flipping a couple of houses, and although I have a ton of flaws, one of my strengths is being resourceful and assembling amazing teams—I’m always looking for people better than me at what they do— what seems to be a good fit for real estate.

Quick search "MLS Only Broker California" gives you a couple of options.

Our standard lease is 27 pages long.We shortened to 6 pages for STR and MTR rentals only.Have had to evict a couple of tenants in Michigan and the leases were needed. 

I've taken a couple webinars but dont remember a whole lot. 

We had a couple companies come in and give wild quotes to rework our system, then found a guy who showed up with schematics and trade journal articles on our particular system, spent 2 hours educating us on it, then cost about $500 to go around and fix all the crappy work previous "contractors" did to the system to try "fixing" it. 

It is more expensive but may not require an appraisal and can close in a couple of weeks. if I can wait then I use the most competitive rehab. lender after obtaining multiple quotes.