Hard money lenders said great things about me and that got me in the door at banks.Bank Loans for RentalsAccess to bank financing opened up the floodgates & bought 50 units in 1 year.Small Unsecured Line of Credit at BankDo deals faster.

You can pay to get it faster but I have plenty of float that as long as I know the tenant has made the transaction I don't care.

That said, watch out for the tenants that somehow have components wear out faster than other tenants, you might have a saboteur on your hands that wants to accelerate replacements for their benefit (a catch 22, sometimes your super-clean tenants want everything to be better all the time).All issues other than tearing a place up are manageable and in general, inexpensive or free to remedy. 

Reading it got me thinking that maybe there’s a faster way to my first investment than I thought.

You run your own numbers and hire your own property manager, etc.If you want to go faster you’ll have to partner and/or buy fixer uppers below market...eventually people get to that point but by showing you did it yourself it will be easier to find partners!

Unfortunately, (or fortunately, depending how u look) prices are rising faster than rent and I cannot find more properties that fit this model.

I actually am able to scale faster using arbitrage vs buying a property for Airbnb and it's much less risky. 

I found that my SFRs cashflow way sooner and appreciate faster than my multi due to rent control... and SFRs are more in demand where I invest and the tenants are less of a headache.  

Others here have given you some great options on flat fee brokers.You can view my opinion as bias bc I am a broker in CA but based on my experience listing with an agent sells for more and sells way faster than FSBO. 

You really should be looking at 4 points in analyzing any potential investment, in no particular order.1) Cash flow2) Appreciation3) Debt paydown4) Tax benefitsPersonally (and this is all personal preference based on your short and long term goals and how your existing portfolio is currently performing.I'm going to put a large weighting on cash flow, as that is more important to me than appreciation since it's a speculative measure in my mind.