I've been proactively reaching out to people who portray themselves as such on-line but really do not know how to insure they are trustworthy.

The insurance agent (Safeco) says that anything over three units is considered commercial and therefore more expensive.I'm getting mixed results when I search online for what is considered residential vs. commercial.

(licensing courses for agents are 75$ online for most states) and I'm not saying its easy or anything and it does take WORK but if you have the 20k to spend on a learning experience.... how about you take a trip to detroit or baltimore and buy a few inner city row houses that need work than go from there.... form an entity to hold them and find a contractor who needs work... probably a few of them in those markets and offer to pay 50% of the cost of materials and offer 50% of the entity holding the properties.... the contractor will have the responsibility to fix up and act as PM in exchange for 50% of the profits after property taxes...

I have seen many groups or meetups online but am trying to narrow it down to a few of the higher quality ones.

Most of the online lender sites that you pay for have been discussed here if you do a search.  

You can find the FHA guidelines online, which are actually fairly extensive.  

Yes, I can research online, but nothing compares to discussing real experiences with people that have actually done it.

A buyer without an option cost, could literally go under contract with 10 homes and pick the one that he really liked without any cost to him/her.Without an option money, a buyer could literally send out contracts on every home he sees online that looks decent, and then tie up hundreds of homes.

I am currently in the class (online) and attended a review class this past weekend.

My current job would make it difficult to attend a classroom setting so I need to take an online course to complete the 60 classroom hours required to sit for the exam.