I made my offer on the first day of a major price drop for the 8 unit.

Eamon,Any time you face a major issue with a bank/lender and they fail to refund your money or it costs you money and a lost deal due to ignorance or bad lending. 

Another major US tool brand, this time from Montgomery Ward.

Even though majority of what I buy is non-performing, I just do not want to deal with it. 

Quote from @Michelle Fenn: Is it just my location or are a  great majority of rental listings on Facebook Scams.   

You get your own dedicated customer service agent and she handles anything I need in a very fast response time.I have run into a couple issues in the buying/rehab process, but I will say REI has rectified the situation to my satisfaction every time and without major pushback. 

And given that, in a major city, there are hundreds of houses put on the market weekly, you need a method to efficiently screen properties to make sure they won't bleed money before you spend time analyzing, touring them ect. 

You can learn the local market without the stress of a major rehab while you start building relationships with property managers and tenants.

@Chris Kay to learn to properly DIY manage you have two basic options:1) Trial & fire on your own, hopefully not making a major mistake that costs you tens of thousands of dollars.- Once your time is more impotant to you then the cost of a PMC, you can hire one.2) Hire a PMC to guide you on your first rental and learn from their expertise.- You can buy additional properties and DIY manage those, perhaps leaning on the PMC for any issues you're not sure how to handle on your own.Good luck:)

I will look through all of the major platforms (Furnished Finder, Airbnb, Zillow, etc.) and see how much furnished MTR units are going for.