I used to work for a guru in the apartment investing space, I learned a lot and we became good friends. 

just trying to understand as my friend is trying to do that same situation...

Be-friend them.

You find them by networking (family, friends, BP, REIA meetings, colleagues, referrals). 

As far as some general criteria/thoughts:- My workplace is in the Cobb/Vinings area and I would ideally like to be a < 30 min drive to work (though I don't mind if its up to 1 hour away since that is my current commute)- I'm interested in using a FHA loan to put ~5% of a down payment (3.5% down pmt + 1.75% upfront mortgage insurance premium)- My target all-in purchase price range is between 200k - 400k - I would prefer to live in a 'A' or 'B' class property that I could rent another unit to a young or established professional/college or grad student- Just from discussion with my friends, a lot of them seem to dig living in areas like Midtown, Buckhead, Virginia Highlands, Brookhaven, Lindbergh.. how feasible would it be for me to househack in any of those areas and expect to generate a decent return in the future once I move out and rent out my unit?

Hello BP friends!

Their pricing structure is not as friendly (at least the last time we evaluated it) which is part of the reason why we switched to Dotloop.

Fast forward to late 2017 and my friend Dr.

There are tons of great tools here at biggerpockets.com I am sure you can find them very useful.I personally use this free house flipping software to help with many things from number crunching, getting money worth, cost cutting, saving time, and or even getting funding for projects to contract managment and your clients or friends will love it too.

My goal is to buy it with conventional financing, repair it to be rent ready, and hire a property manager to rent it out.If you could recommend an investor friendly real estate agent, I would highly appreciate it!