you can hire this service out to a specializing company or you can take the State training and follow their procedures to do this on your own.  

In order to focus your search, you should determine what your investment goals are and which type of program will best suit your needs.IRA Custodians (generally with the word trust in their name) are essentially doing the same thing as a brokerage, but have the staff training and paperwork to document non-traditional assets such as real estate, mortgage notes and stock of privately held companies.  

The rest of the market is better left to the major players with specialized knowledge, trained analysts and enough capital to create a diversified portfolio in this specialty.IMO the difference in returns between industrial real estate and other commercial real estate is too small to justify the increased risk for anyone but the institutional player.

I invested in a duplex in south florida...Account Closed has helped me with a duplex project that is still ongoing in South Florida.  

I got lucky to sign up with a national brokerage who offers lots of training.

General assumptions I am making thus far include (assume duplex on deal below though per unit figures provided to generalize how I'm analyzing anything in the 2-4 unit range):Financing:-3.5% - 10% downpayment (depending on total capitalization), 4.65% interest rate o/ 30 year term-1.75% upfront PMI required, with 0.8%/year amortized into loan payments for ongoing PMI-3% plug for closing costs-2% of loan amount for financing fees-8% vacancy/collection loss-$450/unit/year insurance-7.5% Mgmt Fee on gross potential income-$500/unit/year for R&M-$300/unit/year for capital reserves-All utilities pass through to tenant-$30/month for landscaping-$40/month for pest controlAs mentioned, my cash flow after debt service on nearly all deals I look at (after adjusting the brokers' 20% expense ratio up to the 40-45% I am comfortable with) turns out negative or nearly $0/month, making me question whether the selling prices are absurdly high right now, whether my assumptions are far too conservative, or whether levering a deal to 90-96.5% (utilizing FHA 3.5% or anything up to 10% down) prevents anything from working due to the high monthly cost of financing which includes PMI.

And may see it as a source of ongoing maintenance, like your $20K of rock.The fact there are no other docks anywhere nearby tells me its a unique feature.  

It is extremely exciting to see others want to be apart of the growing niche of investing in vacation rentals, especially in a market like Phoenix where we have no shortage of events ( Spring Training baseball games, Barret Jackson auction, The Phoenix Open, are just a few of the popular events that tourists flood Scottsdale in the Spring time).  

. --------(1) - One of the hardest lessons I've had to learn is that training people or changing people is expensive, time consuming, and rarely works out.

This has been on going for 2 plus years with no resolve as of yet .