Prioritize the questions that align with your investment values and see if things check out in the sponsor's OM. 

Not surprisingly many of the OM's I get do not include it in their pro forma.  

This is where you need to be wise, not only to the OM, but also to the area you chose to invest. 

I recommend you start by spending the next couple of months scouring every deal available on loopnet and Crexi, and studying every OM you can get your hands on.Commercial brokers generally paint a prettier picture than reality on their OMs, but you can still learn a lot from them in terms of how to underwrite a deal and market demographics.Once you get through this phase, pick a class.

Well Steve, I can't speak for your experience, but, the majority of multifamily and commercial deals, that I look at, if they have any kind of obvious upside and/or value add component have deal sheets, marketing packages, and/or OM's WITH pro-forma.

The OM is a good start and keep in mind the message it is designed to send to you as the buyer.

Eventually I'd like to get into working as a GP so I want to get a better feel for typical deal structuring.Do you have any recommendations on how to find sponsors to request OMs from?

Even the top agents in Chicago small commercial send out OM with absurd numbers like 5% vacancy in war zone areas and rehab budgets that are 1/3 of actual costs.

The broker OM says they're selling it at a 7.5% cap rate and $5.7m purchase price. 

There are issues beyond what is listed in the OM (i.e. the water runs through the HOA and then billed to the entire complex (which is over 400 units) but the water authority won't operate it that way anymore.