It was as if my friends were all trying to play a game of one upmanship with each others' homes.

Good Morning,I am Mario and I'm very new to the Real Estate game.

You can do the research, join a local apartment association or hire a PM.If that sounds doable to you, you can certainly search online for a property, but if you find a good agent, they should be able to steer you to a property that will serve you well as well as point you in the right direction for any management advice you might need.Best of luck!

No way around good planning and doing your homework.Exactly, I've never done it that way, I'd only use that as an estimate if you were looking at a house online or something.

Online option? 

I'm about 2 months into seriously being involved in the game & today I won my first auction!

You will have selling costs and taxes that are not worth selling in such a short time, in addition I assume you are in the game to build wealth, keeping this asset is a fantastic foundation to build on, don’t cash out and start over.

With all the new apartments coming on line vacancy rates will most likely dip for a period of time

But if that is stopping you, then this game may not be for you in the long run anyway.

Personally I think it's better than much of the other crap I have seen out there.My clause for Cozy (which I am using) looks like this.RENT PAYMENT PROCEDURE:Tenant agrees to pay their rent to Landlord by way of the Cozy online website link provided by the Landlord.