Your 1031 will ultimately be only as good as the individuals directly assigned to your exchange.  

well that depends on you and your knowledge and your skill/luck etc and no one else. with stocks and with RE, sometimes you get the turn-around projects too, which can suck up your money and be losers or end up as huge winners, when the community recognizes the value add or the company turns it around.

So, having a local agent who is knowledgeable is where you will get the best guidance. 1.

As @Eli Konig mentioned above, going into RE right now without a lot of experience and without knowledge of a local market I think makes TK a decent beginning option.I've been in communication with REI and going through their process right now.

In the Reno market, we have access to hyper-localized and up-to-date rental data and local knowledge of different areas, providing a more accurate picture.Remember, buying real estate is a liability until you sell it, at which point it becomes an asset.

Good question to ask when screening a PM is if they are real estate investors themselves.If you want a PM to be proactive or knowledgeable on where/when to add value (asset management assistance), find one that is an investor.

The high prices of that market are outside my reach, at least with the knowledge I have now.

At least I am drawing my conclusion from my knowledge of algorithm, higher education and real estate experience on top of handling thousands of guests and residents with my own hands. 

R&D is like split testing, trial and error is "I'll be damned to spend the time investing in knowledge so let's just hope we survive the guessing". 

-At the end of the day, if it were me and I was a wholesaler (as opposed to a broker/agent) in this scenario, I would say that "as a courtesy", you can try to help and see if you can sell it to someone else off market, but you should not be expected to do a due diligence for the buyer, that's their responsibility, and you said from the beginning that you are not knowledgeable on land.