However, the one aspect that did strike me as unique with them is that they approach data collection from an algorithmic direction versus a call and survey approach like Costar.

But when an attorney looks at their caseload and sees one potential case which they can't even see the investor's name on any documents and appears to be well protected versus another investor whose name is on every document and they don't have protection - the attorney always will pick the easy money.

That way all the debt is on the investment property versus options like expensive Hard Money lenders or Sellers that offer "financing" but retain tile ownership, etc.

Rather than underwriting to continued perfection, investors who will survive for the long haul are the ones that are underwriting their base case to some degree of reduced performance versus submarket averages today. 

Do yourself a favor and have a couple of "structural firms" (versus engineers) inspect the property. 

I know a while back, on a separate thread, several rental business owners discussed using Social Media as a screening tool - my response was as follows:"Social media can be tricky because verification of account ownership can be a hard one to pin down; ie. if you require it as part of your application, a tenant can supply a "clean" version of their social media presence (ie. professionally created social media profile) versus an account that the applicant might actually use regularly, but you may not have any type of verifiable information to confirm that they own/operate the account.

Versus an undesriable area with a 7+% cap 

Would it make more sense to stick to local that you can see versus trying to buy out of state?

Yes taxes will go up but Chicago still has a great economy versus any other Midwest city.

You could also think a bit about how much you want a nice new car versus a rental.