You seem well on the way to a successful brokerage career and still living at home with low or no bills is the way to start that scaleable but commission only life. 

He's staying locked into the market with his investments since his property taxes are so low, but if I invested, the ROI is so low. 

You'll have to compensate for that with low prices and convincing them that you are young, hungry, and will not be outworked. 

I like Tahoe Reno, NV market because of the appreciation growth, low taxes, landlord friendly, and constricted supply. 

So, start from this fact, and then let's analyze why AI can't help you with lead generation, at least it can't help you improve the currently low efficiency of lead gen.If you can't target them, it truly doesn't matter what advanced methods you use to try to target them right?

Also be mindful of the fact property management is generally viewed as a loss leader in the industry and many make the mistake of self managing through employees  which costs more than hiring a 3rd party firm that has scale to offer mroe back office support, technology, in-house maintenance staff etc.

Yes there are some groups you can join that may be low cost and its not one person who is leading the pack of chickens with their heads cut off - but what this shows is you do not need to spend $10,000 or $20,000 +  when there is so much free information out there.

So many are misinformed on what S8 does and how it does it.It's our tax dollars, so S8 is NOT looking to place low-income tenants (S8) in Class A properties.

Beware of some cross-border companies who have mortgage products they advertise as low interest rate.

Also being a partner instead of just hired on would give the contractor more incentive to keep renovation costs low because that would increase the amount of equity he would have.