Downside to all of this, you will be constantly on the phone and you will have to rely on other people for everything.Or you could just hire someone to manage your properties for you.

I can't say for sure, but if your offer is accepted, you may have already made the biggest (and worst) newbie mistake of all - offering too much.In my area, if a house is listed in the MLS and needs "minimal work", it usually sells to an owner-occupant, and they usually pay too much compared to what in investor should pay.Also, realize that the majority of offers made by experienced investors are NOT accepted.If you really made an offer low enough to get you 30,000 in instant equity, your offer probably won't be accepted.

Considering that I found articles going back to 2010 I find it very hard to believe that there seems to be no one on here that has a track record over a 5 year time frame or more with the company.Even if everything you said is true you should think about being more upfront with the risks or downsides because even if everything is true the way it is advertised seems fishy as does the way you answered the questions on here in “ad speak”.  

Today we got the first confirmation that other asset managers may have finally given up on the rental conversion strategy, following the observed collapse in multi-family housing starts which crashed from 376K to 234K in April (the lowest since last summer), a drop of 142K and the worst monthly drop since 2006 when the housing market had once again peaked and was about to undergo a very serious correction.http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-05-16/multifamily-starts-suffer-biggest-monthly-plunge-2006-reo-rent-recovery-deadIn addition to the money-laundering aspect (confirmed previously) and the REO-To-Rent scramble by PE firms and hedge funds (which is now over as PE become active sellers of apartment rental properties), we highlighted the third implicit subsidy to the housing non-recovery:Foreclosure stuffing.

This is the biggest issue with the home and what has likely held back most buyers.

All of your steps listed are Not in the correct order, specifically 3-5.I am of the strong opinion that you should build a buyers list first before contracting deals, there is just no downside to this order while there are some downsides to finding deals then finding buyers.

A real estate license can be valuable in real estate investing, and I personally see no downside to having a license.

I know those areas take the biggest hit during the downturn and are last to recover.

That's my biggest regret in this business.

I feel my job as a broker is to let my clients and customers know the upside and downside of a property or their decisions and it's for them to decide and I'll follow through with their request.