In your "vanilla" C-class value-add syndication pre-COVID investors were regularly shown an IRR of 15% over a 5-7 year hold period.

For example, for our first rental, we took a second "regular" mortgage on our house.

Regular 401Ks do not.

I thought about a regular mortgage but the stockpile of cash would have to payout twice a month and would cut the timline down drastically.

If you become an appraiser and all you're doing is determining values for regular sales transactions that won't add anything to help you with knowledge for a flipping business. 

But if you bought a vacant property, just use the regular sources, zillow, realtor.com. 

Just monitoring the thermostat, temp and the main door right now.

But upfront a basic view of the regular economic cycle: This total cycle covers 100 years.

Just the regular maintenance, etc.Problems were minimal at first, just the usual you got to wait 3 weeks for them to inspect the place, and if they find one thing wrong like a cracked light switch plate you are not allowed to fix it even though you are standing right there next to the inspector. 

@John Farady that is very valuable information.I just wanted to add, in order for a DM piece to perform, your marketing message (copy) must match the questions going on in your target's mind and address their concerns, challenges, and problems.You could have the best copy, but if the letter or postcard is being sent to a target list where things aren't congruent (a match around solving their problem), what ends up happening is a deep frustration around DM.DM can be expensive to do on a regular basis.