She is in her 6th year of a start up as well as purchasing an existing practice.

Someone points you in the general direction of said target, you shoot and hope something hits.If you truly want to make it happen...Look to SEO, PPC, or Facebook ads!

Considering how all the actual high quality fine hotels are refunding people’s money no questions asked, I guess I expected any company claiming to hold themselves to the same standards to follow the best practices of the industry.

In the end I think our income was high enough and the old mortgage low enough that we would have qualified anyway, so we didn't exactly get to test this in practice.

If you were to go back in time with all the real estate/investing knowledge you have now... what would you put on your checklist of things to do before getting started?

The best practice would be to cash out refi to reinvest the equity, or to 1031 exchange once your equity has built up.

Valuation is the cornerstone of my investment practice - both professionally and personally. 

Watch some of the BP videos or read some of the articles on how to analyze deals and start practicing on some in your area.

Yes, at first it is information overload, but just keep learning and practice analyzing deals.

I know these aren't the best for finding deals - but I have been practicing analyzing them.