This enables you to stay in the duplex while accruing savings and keeping your own living expenses lower.

By the time you get to know the market, you'll have a better understanding of the players, including the wholesalers and investors.

You can find out a lot that way too.Finally - know that there are usually plenty of seasoned players bidding against you.  

The line of credit and loan opportunities are not that good in my opinion.I have CapitalOne for my personal account and I am thinking to move there as their tech has evolve and it is at a good level with very low cost, though I haven't evaluated what are the benefits for LLCs, they have all the offerings as a bank because they are one (Mercury is not a bank, it is a tech enabling company).

That is where the commercial brokers specialize in knowing the main players in any given area. 

New Western has been a player for years.

So basically the realtor would be enabled to "double-dip" the commission.

There were options that would have made better investments, but the lifestyle this enabled fit perfectly.

For those who feel comfortable living with roommates or who want to get into real estate investment gradually, house hacking SFR is an excellent alternative since it enables you to start small and live in one unit while renting out the others.

That's why it's a smart move to obtain estimates from various sources, not just the major players like Zillow and Realtor.