Had a bad experience recently with a contractor.

I have zero experience, but my wife and I eat out a lot???"

From my experience, the most reputable/reliable GCs will charge for a scope of work and overall consultation/advice.

@Scott EwellLeveraged vs debt-free is a personal decision to some extent.Leverage will give you a higher ceiling on your investment, whereas debt free provides the lower floor.While I can't say which is best for you in particular; I can say that, in my experience, every majorly successful investor I've come across uses debt in their strategy to some degree.

I was trying to be nice and just explain that you can't actually manage real estate if you have no money and no experience.

You should be receiving a monthly owner statement and then you can just incorporate it into your corporate accounting.I have almost 20 years of PM experience in the accounting/finance world.

How has your experience been?

Does this match up with your experience. 

These FSBO's are usually idiots, or think other people are from my personal experience. 

In Northeast Florida my experience has been that it is slower in January/February as far as showing traffic/potential tenants.