Often new investors are simply looking at the wrong types of properties or the wrong areas.

If they are attempting to run a scam on the service dog approach their fall back will be the emotion scam. 

Sometimes that was simply a phone call. 

Simply put - hire a Property Manager as the Realtor to help you find and purchase the property. 

A lot of it is simply driving around.

I would simply do the work without asking anything in return, and even refused to get compensated by him when he demanded it.

In my mind, Portland has many similar advantages to San Francisco - geographic constraints to spreading (rivers, mountains), difficult development requirements, a young workforce and better than national average population growth projections, and a "coolness" factor with tech workers and millennials that one can't simply create by declaring oneself a tech hub. 

No, there are some things that you simply cannot hold them responsible for.

Simply saying it's a 10-Unit doesn't adequately describe the property as to justify the price.

They simply stabilized and held, knowing that the market will hand them the exit.