Sec 8 rents need to be competitive, otherwise, they'd never get into private housing.Sometimes they can be beneficial like with bad tenants.  

If you were talking about paying cash at a 20% discount and closing in 10 days vs using an FHA loan at full price and putting a distressed home owner through an inspection and requests for repairs then that's where this tactic could be beneficial. 

Liberty Mutual currently has a moratorium on Dallas, TX and several other major markets due to "civil unrest."

I am very aware that part of becoming confident in your ability to invest correlates with confidence with a "rolodex" with relationships that can be mutually beneficial.

Income and employment would be beneficial as well.

@Aden Brust one of the things that may be beneficial is going active duty military.

Getting a real estate agent's license is beneficial, but not completely necessary.

@Mike Smith - as your specific questions have been addressed, one thing that I will add is that there are 2 things that I have found beneficial to investors in syndications. 1.

My goal is diversifying my investment portfolio (currently mostly mutual funds), focusing on long-term returns via buy-and-holding single family rentals.

But i like both of your suggestions, i'll just look more into it to see which one is more beneficial.