Maybe have your own home improvement co.

Also have no experience in construction and therefore lack the confidence to make an estimate on those costs when evaluating properties. 

The units were also being upgraded (albeit at a very slow pace).So, as you can imagine I was super excited to find a deal where we could not only improve management, but also increase rents and not have to spend a ton of money to on CAPEX and repositioning.

Just yesterday (before discovering this mess) I assured her that I felt confident I could close the deal with her if she didn't get the loan. 

Being confident in the numbers and recognizing YOUR strategy allows you to be disciplined in determining how far you’re willing to go in the purchase or sale of a property, realizing of course, that sometimes the best deal is the deal that’s never done.

Zillow "...generates unbiased local and national real estate data and analysis on 929 metropolitan areas and approximately 10,400 individual neighborhoods that we provide to consumers and real estate, rental, mortgage and home improvement professionals..." (2) The Zillow database focus is data aggregation of 110 million properties with "information from tens of thousands of public and private sources."

Like mentioned above keep your eyes peeled for something you can improve or see creating the extra value possible in SD.

Just finished BP's Ultimate Beginner's Guide and it was great.I want to fill my head with as much knowledge, go to meetups, and connect with as many people as possible so I can gain confidence to make my next purchase.Glad you reached out!

Also after the phone and iPad flipped out of my hands I lost confidence in closeting the deal with a contract.

I am confident but not arrogant and the level of humility allows to ask question and adapt at will.