Great questions, and I will be totally up front in stating how new I am to all of this.

Say they sold the properties over 3 year period and could not sell the rentals together as a portfolio.Could they put the money from each sale into a DST then use the total to buy a expensive rental property?

I got a primary loan for around $530,000 and a second loan for $110,000 so my total out of pocket was about $10,000 for closing costs.

Unless your team can put in 10% of the total money raised, you will have trouble obtaining financing. 

My in-laws loaned us the total purchase price minus $5,000 on a 3% interest rate.

Maybe there's an angle for seller financing or some other creative approach to get the seller the total return they want over time, but it's hard to say without actual facts and data.

Basically 75% of the total rents need to cover all the bills.

It gives you a total livability score as well. https://www.areavibes.com/

I looked at the rental trend over the past 10 years, I should be fine in year 7 for the refinance unless rates are totally out of this world.Your right those rents would be really low for Stamford. 

It’s totally normal to feel overwhelmed when starting out, but it’s great that you’ve been saving and reading up on investing.