I closed on our best deal to date a little less than a year ago and it was brought to me off market by one of my agents, and one of my loan officers was able to get me 75% LTV on appraisal instead of the normal "lower of appraisal of purchase price".

The county has different rental districts or areas of the county (from my understanding) that have a set lower assessed value. 

In my opinion, I wouldn't do a syndicated deal because you are not going to learn the ins and outs of owning a 5+ units, you won't have control or say in the deal plus your returns will be lower.

FHA will allow you to put down less than 10%, 3.5% in fact, but if you'd like a bit lower monthly FHA MI and removal of lifetime FHA MI you can put down that 10% if you want (only slight benefits).The SS rule will require you to have around 5850 gross rents or higher to qualify this "rule."

Use seller financing to hold the note to increase your profits, not sell the note to lower your profits.IRR would be the best way to calculate your ROI.

Given this is your first deal you may have to put some money into the mix and your lender may go with a lower LTV. 

Basically you are paying more upfront in exchange for a lower long term interest rate.

I’d probably split the difference and go 50 bucks lower.

And the broker can discredit other, more honest brokers by saying those agents who suggest a lower list price just want an easy sale.However, if a Broker gives you a list price that's much higher than other brokers, usually it's a trick.

Wholesaling seems easier in lower priced markets from what I have seen .On the plus side if you actually have a deal it’ll be easier to assign it since there is a lot of investor activity now and it seems everyone wants to be in real estate .