I commend you for staying focused and persistent in the light of adversity as evidenced by your intro.What I would do to start is to select a niche in real estate investing. 

You may way want to check on any arms length addendums you signed for the short sale. 

Since they won't actually be signing a lease until the move in date, what would be the best possible way to write up the transfer of this fee and still be protected on all sides to be able to keep it if they decide to back out before giving the rest of the funds needed to move in (which of course I don't anticipate happening). 

My friend just contact the sponsoring broker who proceeded to say she was requiring a $1000 sign on fee to cover many things, I'm aware of MLS fees but is this normals practice?

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If you have experience with getting all the documentation compiled, completed and signed and such kindly share your experience!

I just recently signed up for BiggerPockets.

But we are very careful with tenant selection and find the creams of the Class C resident pool.I think you're going to be disappointed with paying out more than $50K per unit for anything that only yields $100/month positive cash flow. 

What to look out for in determining potential neighborhoods (I am not local to the area and is curious on how "hot" neighborhoods started out and what signs to look out for)How bad can a bad investment be?

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