A major player in my learning was podcasts & blogs. 

Experience has taught me that when investing out of state, I need a competent and trustworthy team to succeed.

And I’m looking at ways to determine which asset would be best to take a position on when competing asset choices exist.

I found it helpful to apply a percentage vs. a dollar since you can track/compare it deal-to-deal and compete against your own prior performance.

Although they are starting to see some development from players like Mandel, Cobalt and Ogden, the city was geographically poised for an economic boom 10 years ago and only now is it starting to attract real attention due to various challenges previously mentioned (demographics and ease of business being the top two, in my opinion).  

However, I have a very trusted and competent builder in the area who can add more doors to the units.

Price gains are leaving buyers on the sidelines as they are blocked by affordability and limited supply as new listings for the month down 6.67% from last June, chocking supply and forcing prices up as more buyers are competing over limited stock.

On average the smaller players have a higher cost and may only have a limited pool of funds.

But the rest of the stuff about "skill point allocation" remains true - bankers ubiquitously have "captive vendor" aka "do not compete" arrangements with their employers, so they aren't allowed to broker or send the business elsewhere even if they want to, and even if they are licensed, without (rarely granted) employer approval. 

Be safe and don't work ahead of your competence levelIf you know what it would cost you to buy material to do something and you know what it would take you time wise, you can work backwards into a contractor's bid and figure out the equivalent hourly rate you are paying, which is a great place to start working a bid down.