The major players in the space will quickly be identified to you as most of us are very frequent posters on the topic.The markets that are most represented here in the forums are Memphis, Cleveland & Indy.

You can meet your local players and what is working for your area.

I cover the entire sales process during a 30-minute consultation with all my buyers... it's not that complicated.Advantages to having the license is you will be able to grow your network even faster by being exposed to more players in the market, lenders, attorneys, etc. 

Being an LP in a syndication is the way to got for high net worth players.

The big local players seem to be selling off their properties.

While 90% are probably not worth pursuing, long established players often get more deals than they can handle.

Even though you technically need an attorney for the closing, the process can still be simpler (and often cheaper) than with a traditional closing, simply because there are fewer players, and therefore fewer people "getting their cut." 

Sooner or later the correction will come and you'll see who the real players (eg @Brian Burke @Omar Khan @Todd Dexheimer are few) are.

Over 2k you get too many Players and Wantabees and they seldom take care of your houses.

Crowdfunding makes real estate easily accessible, however, in regard to institutional real estate investments, the advice of an expert who works in the industry every day, knows all the players and their track records, and performs due diligence on each offering is a great benefit to you.