It's vitally important to know who you are working with, and have the history of the players involved.

A quick Google search should yield some of the top players.

Now we need to factor in the other players, defenders, 3rd parties (coaches, refs, fans, etc).

Dollar General and Dollar Tree have been building ~1,000 stores each in the U.S. each year for over a decade, and I've read people on the forums who have pursued strategies for building and leasing specifically to these players at a high volume.How is this rate of new builds sustainable, and how can we determine the point of saturation, when the pipeline ends?

-Join the Kansas City Apartment Association and attend their conferences/events especially any relating to legislative advocacy to meet your local players in multi family 

The types of projects, the project costs, timelines.Personally, I think the end result for us all is to have an ever growing and expanding REI company that remains a player in the game for decades to come. 

Which one usually has more action, more players, more that I could watch, listen and learn from?

Ask if they've approached any of the regular commercial players like CBRE, ARA Apartments, Starwood Trust?

Meet the players, introduce yourself, get to know them, ask for cards, take them out to lunch.  

@Joel CummingsAn agent needs to bring real buyers, not game players and scammers.