Honestly every one of them will tell you they loose money when they teach renatus classes.  

It is quite frustrating for sure and there are no shortage of people who take advantage of others but, ultimately, unless there is significant money you are loosing ($25k+) from this due to their lack of disclosure, it usually isn't worth your time.

Rental rates are coming down due to some excess inventory.

The obvious thing to do is to sell and take the tax free gains, then any excess gains are passive and can be offset by creating passive losses via investing in more real estate and doing cost segregations.

I should add so many agents here, are gonna tell you this ******** about renting being a waste, but it’s literally cheaper by in some cases thousands a month when factoring in repairs, you can put excess savings into index funds etc. every single friend I have all of whom are pretty fiscally savvy have made the same calculation, I even have a good friend who is trying to sell his condo to rent because his monthly expenses will decrease when he sells his condo & he can be in a better area.

Furthermore, only the “excess basis” of property acquired after Sept. 27, 2017, through a Sec. 1031 exchange qualifies for bonus depreciation.

While there are good operators out there, their will be plenty in this environment of rising rates, expanding cap rates, and not executing their business plans, that will loose all their investors money.

I am loosing my sleep learning and learning this.

Regarding exterior painting standard is no loose paint. 

Ashcroft can offer slimmer returns and still have excess demand for their offerings because of... brand.