I currently run a podcast "Real Estate Trends and Market Updates," and we do market updates and interview investors on it as well. 

Another way to get into a new market is to interview 3 Realtors and 3 Property Managers.

For the interviews, I think I had 5-6 questions I asked all of the Realtor and 5-6 questions I asked all of the Property Managers.

You should really interview a few lenders!

Regardless of how you find them, try to interview at least three managers1.

Though the deal is not finalized I feel grateful to be able to salvage the deal and I plan to learn from this experience and make sure I interview lenders before even having a potential property in sight.

My partner has the benefit of managing around 300 employees so she's very good at setting expectations and interviewing, which are really the 2 things a landlord / property manager needs to be good at.And anyone that tries to get us to change our rules on the tour or tries to bully or "be the expert," or argue about rules is never going to be approved, anyway. 

How many builders did you interview?

I have been telling my applicants that I do not charge for application fee and I tell them upfront + on listing + on prescreening interview that I require to do a background/credit check and that will require a fee and that is sent to them and they can wish to proceed if they still desire to.Please let me know what you think, and what you think I should do going forward.

Try to pick 3, then interview investor focused agents, pick one who 'gets' your goals, get set up on auto-search emails that match your parameters (budget, asset type, areas), once the HELOC is complete make an offer on the first property that fits your #s!