Never Split The Difference is a great book on negotiating - it's written by Chris Voss.It also helps to be extremely well educated in your space - it will boost confidence and help to communicate well. 

If you do it yourself and earn the respect of the neighborhood, it boosts your standing.

I’ve also heard of agents investing in properties over time such as rentals and have heard that it can help boost your income.Basically I’m looking for some pointers and tips for starting out.

So to boost cash flow, when you put money into a property to raise the NOI, are you giving the property a cash diuretic or a cash laxative?

The properties had been on the market for some time, and were not in the best shape, so the owner was offering land contract terms with the agreement of his mortgage holder, a local bank that finances many properties in the area.The units were all fully occupied when we purchased them, although it turns out a number were new leases perhaps signed in haste to boost the occupancy rate.

Way to make the right friends and influence the right people.

I do need to "hear" some positive boosting talk.

You can get better or worse returns in a syndication vs. a buy and hold - you just need to evaluate the #'s, the sponsor's track record, and make sure you're comfortable w/ the assumptions of each option.Key differences:1) control: in a syndication, you have little to none, mainly just whatever influence your voting rights provides2) liquidity: in a syndication, it's not easy getting out prior to the entire group selling the property3) time: being a passive in a syndication is about as passive an investment as you can get, whereas buy and hold will involve landlording, repairs, maint,, etc. unless you hire a PM company4) 1031 exchanges: must easier to orchestrate on your own buy and hold property.    

Much of the "growth" reported by retailers has resulted from poaching existing store sales: The American Model of "Growth": Overbuilding and Poaching (November 19, 2013).Once the wheels fall off this model of "growth," chains will enter a cycle of closing marginal stores to boost profits.

They are extremely unpredictable and should not have an influence whatsoever on a your decision to buy the property.