That said, the most money to be made in residential rental real estate is in C/D class housing in areas on the verge of becoming "discovered" and the influx of residents and investment money driving up prices (the equity that makes you rich).

Best to structure and treat as if a property management company from the start.Think like an institutional lender/servicer.

This deal was discovered through diligent market research and networking in the Linden, MI area.

I recommend to all my property management clients to institute RUBS/Sense etc, there's really great tools nowadays to put systems in place to measure these items, be it water or electric. 

Over the years for various reasons a few of my tenants have discovered where I live.

I was a residential real estate investor for well over a decade and I spent 3 years in commercial real estate before I discovered syndication.

Of course, their motivation is just being altruistic and "sharing the secrets" they discovered, because they want nothing other than "help a fellow investor."

effectively, you'd either need to look for a lender that would let you use the other property as collateral (cross) so that you can avoid actually taking the cash-out (this is rare in terms of institutional DSCR lenders, but fairly common in the hard money or private money space)...

These are typically one-offs and depository institutions are in the best position to offer them.

There is a lot of uncertainty in the market for institutional capital, which funds a lot of these types of loans.