With that said, I have researched the path of being a bird dog which allows me to get my “feet wet” in the business without having a big marketing budget or actually locking up the home under contract.

The biggest difference is two  years ago, we might have chased a bit. 

I wrongly assumed that after learning Chase offers no personal loans and PNC only offers up to 35k that most big banks would not offer them.

At the moment i have 6k saved in cash that I have with 1k in a student account at chase and 5k in cash.

As a first time investor, you are likely to chase most realtors away, especially if you ask them a ton of specific questions related to the rules of thumb you find here.

@Chase Gibson I would be paying cash with ~10k in repairs; good to know about the area

(I'm assuming your doing 50+ unit apartments)and if not, then that seems to explain why you can be more free spirited with deal analysis.OR, maybe your leads are more tailored to your liking than most.. leaving less room for outliers.. which seems like a valuable method, just be clear with your brokers and bird dogs, and you've got less time to waste on getting nitty gritty.. 

If your answer is bird dogging.

If your answer is bird dogging.

The seller ALREADY has a loan with Chase for the property (so they are familiar with it and have loaned on it repeatedly.