I know that the IRS gets picky about using single member LLC's to avoid taxes.

Note investors often prefer to end up with cash flow on notes and avoid the problems of dealing with toilets and tenants that landlords have.

With that experience, I have gotten pretty good at avoiding evictions and bad tenants.

Using all cash I avoid a lot of closing costs and then absorb the refinance cost into the loan.

Most of the foolish beginner's pitfalls and potholes could be avoided by learning from someone who has already made those mistakes, learned from them, and moved on to success.If you have spent any amount of time here on BP you will have come across numerous posts from investors who blast the novice entrepreneur for clogging up the market with bad deals, or more concerning to me, accidentally break the law and risk major issues.

Clearly my expenses for the wooden siding maintenance will be higher than brick as will need to repaint and touch up every 5 years or less, and the service for the window units will likely be less (especially since my lease states the tenants are responsible for them along with appliance repairs under $150 for that rental) along with them being cheap to replace and fairly serviceable.You have to look at each component of a given property and estimate the maintenance for it based on what you know, what you have seen as best practice here, ways you can minimize or avoid the expense, and based on quotes that you get from contractors as part of your diligence period.  

They seem to be very conservative and focus on avoiding getting beat too bad by the market vs. helping your get wealthy.

Is it worth being trained by a brokerage or is that a situation I should avoid at all costs?

This is exactly the reason why you should avoid workmen's comp.  

I'm not looking for an excuse to avoid giving the tenant their money back.