Many applicants tend to embellish the upside of their investment, which turns off bankers.

Builders have taken notice of the drastic changes under way, I encourage everyone to start running some searches to find all the development applications in downtown Hamilton, you'll be surprised to find some massive condominium and apartment complexes in the works.

In person application as well? 

Even conventional lenders don't actually take applications until you have a contract to buy a property.  

@Elliott Wolf any lender will do a VOE - or verification of employment... you'd end up running into a whole new different area of pain if you were not honest on your loan application. 

This article isn't speaking to exactly what you're asking...it's focused on turnkeys being good for new investors...but some of the points in it may still be applicable if you're considered which way to go-https://www.biggerpockets.com/...Also not exactly answering your question but bringing up more points in comparing options- turnkey vs. doing it on your own-https://www.biggerpockets.com/...The returns may be lower, but they may not.

We currently have a realtor to do the grunt work of finding and screening tenant applications and then we self manage.

I had to manually send each text in the software.

I also personally would support this with saying that you dont NEED college degree to be successful with desk jobs (certain ones, you may  - like software engineering... working for most of fortune 500- you know what i mean) but I also say this because all i had was passion and drive to learn and was able to get/keep desk jobs in the past. dont feel obligated to go through school but just know that this is what you want to pursue and want, and everything will fall in place for you. 

Do you use a Craigslist posting software to automate ads?