While I have been involved in real estate since 2009 when I acquired my 1st investment property back in college, I still consider myself fairly new to real estate world as I am still learning so much.

Definitely get involved in the wholesaling and rehab forum areas, because in my opinion the two require a lot of the same knowledge:1) An understanding of the local market2) How figure out ARV of a property3) How to estimate rehab costsThose are just a few.

As it seems clear you will be using financing your short time frame to move into an apartment building via 1031 exchange seems aggressive Trading in depreciated assets can be a challenging task, I am sure you can find much more information on 1031's within the site.

At this point, I'm looking to become more involved with REI.

It's a cash deal so no financing involved.

I based my comments off the fact that you want to be involved in apartments and that you are just starting out.

But the question posed was how can we clean it up....I think.Well, follow the lead of the good ones, begin underwriting the deal, asses the real risks involved, employ tatics to reduce or eliminate identified risks, and assess the value truly given and charge fairly for the real risk assumed.

If getting involved with deals through L/O'S, sub2's and owner financing is something you would rather not do, try to network with people who do..

These are for the county foreclosure auction so there are no contracts involved, it's more like an expensive eBay auction, lol.By the way I highly recommend Dot Loop for managing contracts.

Since there is no Realtor involved, it would be great if you could go with her, but at least be on the phone when she gets there.