Definately not true.

Have a reason for choosing a market and that reason should be based on clearly defined and quantified investment goals.

I was all over the place without a well defined plan, but I learnt a lot.

If you hire a developer or a group of developers to build a website it is going to be very expensive, and the project scope that you stated isn't clearly defined. 

You have to define if you're looking at/ talking about diversifying out real estate as an asset class or general diversification.

First, there should be no question about how payments are credited, and this should be defined in your note.

Shows good character on you and for him to actually volunteer some info. 

In this article, I try to define what that means. https://www.biggerpockets.com/forums/52/topics/402...The reluctant landlords are sometimes thrust into a bad situation. 

I would also prefer to invest in B/C rated neighborhoods and am still in the process of identifying these exact places.So far, I have found the Columbus RE investing community to be simply amazing and I am thankful to have been referred to this website - there is so much great material here.My question is, how did everyone else define their goals / start their investment journey?

Ultimately, you want to evaluate the character of the operator and the risk in the particular deal.