The real work comes in screening and selecting tenants,  and depending on your type of rental (A/B/C/D)  that can be a make it or break it for someone who wants to self-manage.   

You’re a player no matter what your situation is…you’re in the Real Estate game.

I have done A-B-C-D, the number in the chain has nothing to do with it.

From my perspective, in a market where the institutional players are active (see https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/311/topics/86191-the-modus-operandi-of-the-mass-buyer---a-case-study), I disagree with most of the above posts.

I often standup in meetings ("Hi, my name is Troy, and I am a landlord") and complain about the struggles that I've gone through in my own investing, and talk about the problems I face with the tenant class that I've got in my properties, and how I'm ready to sell my C/D properties with low-end tenants.  

They have been in business since 1978 and are a big player in this field.

That means put one dollar and place in one pocket (small cap), another in other pocket (mid cap), left back pocket (large cap), and right back pocket International, and then bonds, cd’s safe supposedly in shirt pocket.

An experienced investor will be able to spot out a 'player' real estate agent/broker quickly.

Those areas have many B,C,D class properties that you can rehab and add some value.

@Ned Carey  in addition one needs to have nexus lexus and be an expert at skip tracing.out our way the bigger players in this tend to be private detectives..and in many areas the counties make it darn tough as they don't like to see middle men taking 50% of peoples money.... this is an old Guru program that has kind of come and gone.