A lot of the advice I've seen online for buying prefoclosure properties says you should get a real estate agent who specializes in that ... well I am a licensed agent and would like to represent myself in any deals, but I don't know anything about preforclosure!

The property manager and eviction service will have to help represent us with all the things we can charge them with

If I can represent one side or the other (OR BOTH!!!)

There are plenty of downsides to California, all of which have been beaten to death here on the forums, but it's nice to see a balanced perspective represented, too. 

We negotiated through a commercial PSA that I represented myself (since I am both a Commercial Real Estate Agent and Investor).

I personally represent all commercial real estate and am looking to grow the group with more real estate contacts (Note: There is only one member in the group per profession, and we already have a real estate agent joining the group).

Exclude the ones that were sold on MLS that may be fixer-uppers, for example, a SFH sold at 40K, because that doesn’t represent what a comp would sell for after repair.4.

Other than the general line "that properties listed with a Realtor sell for more," it really comes down to are you comfortable representing yourself? 

We represented ourselves.

We represented ourselves and wrote up our own contract for deed.