If you really wanted to learn about an area from the sidewalk up, you could get a new Prius and sign up to drive for Uber...the other way is to not depend on the "Pros" out there and just learn how to use Zillow.com.

I'm in Livonia / Canton area and I haven't attended any Washtenaw County or Ann Arbor REIA events but I do attend the Oakland County REAI meeting in Troy as well as the Michigan REIA meetings in Troy and they are super helpful and if you sign up to get their emails you can check the topics in advance to make sure it's worth the trip for that meeting.They usually have really good speakers. 

The right loan officer can calculate all of this for you and set you up for success not only now but for future properties too.And as I mentioned, you can not only use your VA benefit for 1 property, if your purchase price is low enough, you will have secondary/bonus entitlement to buy a second property with a VA loan.

The study identifies with forensic engineering detail the immediate Bonus Depreciation 5, 7 and 15-year personal property class lives qualifying portions of a building that are normally buried in 27.5 year residential or 39 year commercial categories.

However, there are some restrictions that apply, you'll want to look for details on "bonus entitlement."

You can get RentRedi for free when you sign up for BP Pro membership.

In addition, make sure the Realtor is full time, and has experience with Investors, and a bonus if they have investment properties themselves.  

What a cost segregation study does is it analyzes a property and breaks out the depreciable basis of the property to more than just building and land.It will try to identify assets that are eligible for 5, 7 or 15 year asset lifes which would be eligible for bonus depreciation.Whether a cost segregation study will help you depends on your tax situation.High level, it will help you in two situations1) Your rental property is active and you can offset the losses against other forms of income.2) You have a lot of passive income and you want to increase your passive losses to offset your passive income.Best of luck

Another bonus - the lease payments they'd receive prior are taxed at a lower rate than interest. 

I think we dodged a bullet, we tested TenantCloud and didn't like the fact that you had to signup for multiple accounts just to get online payments.