Having said that, with the exception of a couple of legal formalities, I'm having difficulties seeing the difference between the two.If you're a buy/hold commercial real estate investor and you acquire your properties via an LLC, is what you're doing that much different from an REIT?

The difficulty is what makes it profitable for the successful ones.

We really like Danbury best but we are having difficulty finding any properties in the price range we are loooking at.What section of Bridgeport do you recomend for Multi family PropertiesBarbara

The difficulty with pricing it into the rent is that when potential tenants are comparing apartments on paper they aren't going to say "Gee, this includes storage, I'm willing to pay an extra $75 a month."

I am having a little difficulty estimating the landlord’s portions of maintenance/expenses.When analyzing a 4, 8, 12 or 16 size apartment building.

I wouldn't argue that there may be some de facto discrimination in some areas (i.e. difficulty getting a bank loan or financed within certain areas, aka "redlining"), but there are too many examples of people that knew that RAF @Alexander Felice's claim of "Broke is a choice" is true - many of them right here on this board - for this hypothesis to be true.

What is the difficulty in purchasing an MLS property as an investor?  

One of the difficulties in self managing in Big Bear is that you have to have an "agent" that can respond to complaints and be at the property within the hour.

They also aren't forthcoming about risks, challenges, difficulties, etc.

It's clear that you and your wife have done an impressive job with your flipping ventures, and your wife appears to be adept at managing the business.Given the current difficulties in finding profitable flips in the Washington DC, VA, and MD area, it might be worth considering a shift in roles within your partnership.