Depending on the lender (bank or alt. lender) you have to look at origination fees....points, doc prep, interest rate, frequency draws are allowed/min. draw amount allowed per request, interest payments vs. interest reserve & whether interest reserve is capitalized to fully understand the true cash requirements.

It helps being willing to talk to sellers/get on the phone and talk to folks in the real estate space in general but the most important thing in my opinion is being an honest and true person.

As long as the city considers your property a true SF, you shouldn't have any issues getting this permitted (in theory, yet to see how some municipalities will handle this law).

Hopefully, not an expensive tenant or Fair Housing lawsuit.100% of what @Travis Biziorek states is true, but he left out a key fact - he lived in the Detroit area when he started investing here, so was able to self-manage and meet everyone he had to hire face-to-face.

NOTE: we agree with charging for their time, but not the lack of disclosure.4) Some PMC's also get kickbacks from contractors, so the price you see on the contractor invoice sent to you, is really not the true price.

This is where the true opportunities are.Detroit, starting with Downtown is experiencing a massive redevelopment, at this point its no longer a secret. 

Is this true?

This is true in most markets. 

However, my true goal has always been to develop, buy, and manage real estate—something I’ve dreamed about since I was 12 years old.

The tried and true version is pulling a list of properties whether you're targeting distressed homes or high equity homes in which case you can pull on something like Propstream or Propwire, you can skip trace through them or someone like Prime Tracers which has a pay as you go system.