But if you have to jump through hoops or spend a significant amount of money to put it in might not be worth it. 

I'm going off the understanding that you still need to spend 500+ hours in the business to achieve material participation (please correct me if I'm wrong). 

Don't spend time looking for something that doesn't exist.

On utilities, I bought a foreclosure in NJ and found out it was not attached to Town sewer and I actually had to extend the main line up to my property then put the lateral in and abandon an old cesspool.  

Learn to control your spending and pay off debt.

Unfortunately, this costs $$$ that you shouldn't have to spend.

So you're willing to pay $30,000 for their furniture when you could spend $5,000 on your own?

i think you can be successful if you are willing to do what you alluded to, which is spend time in person in your chosen market. 

New York is hard to evict people and you'll end up spending more time and money doing it yourself.

I'm completely lost at why people would spend money on class and workshop, when they can actually use that money and go find deals a bit outside of the expensive city we're in. $8,000 could got you started on a deal, or do a mailing list of some kind.