@Tommesa Mobley good for you for practicing analyzing deals.

Networking is always a great practice and you never know who you might meet there and what good information they have to share. 

Find Brandon's videos on YouTube for the "four square" method of analyzing homes and practice.

For instance, it can quickly and simultaneously lower your expenses while increasing your income (the fundamental recipe for building wealth), you get the better terms of an owner-occupant mortgage, it can provide multiple exit strategies (rehab, sell, move out in a year or two and rent it, just keep living in it, etc.), and--importantly--it will teach you many of the most important skills that are needed for continued success in REI (e.g.; property analysis & due diligence skills, tenant screening skills, property management skills, etc., etc.). 

Networking is always a great practice and you never know who you might meet there and what good information they have to share.

No, their eyes dart between the clock and the road, long practice assuring them that if they make it to the second light on Maple by 8:22 they still have a change to pull into their job's parking lot by 8:39 and punch in before their 8:45 flex-time deadline passes.

We have purchased a half dozen foreclosures in the few years and I can speak to the buy side and some due diligence best practices if that helps.

I gut says yes, however if I have 10 applicants, I don't know if its common practice with these web based rental applications to charge each that applies verses with paper applications/checks, payment can be returned if an applicant doesn't even qualify enough to have the backround/credit check done. 

You are looking at the bigger picture and you should take a more realistic and practical look here.Do you think BECAUSE you send 3 billion postcards out you will get a deal?

Take it as a learning experience and clean up your bookkeeping practices.