Granted I haven't thought about it as in depth as I'd like, I plan on looking into this pretty heavily over the next few weeks.

I looked at it with the maintenance guy (condo) and it had rained pretty heavily the night before and it was still bone dry.

Loading one up too heavily can lead to negative cash-flow.

I justify 5% as settlement costs taking bulk properties which doesn't sound so bad as a discount for taking them all.Usually, there is a dog in the bunch too, I may discount that one heavily hitting on repairs and making it appear that I'm paying a better price on the others, as a compensating factor.Since they are landlords I always explain the tax hit they will take throwing back in depreciation just in case they forgot and then explaining the advantages of seller financing, as this is exempt from Dodd-Frank.Try to work in seller financing, on one or more properties, often you can get the whole package, but if they really need cash you can get your purchase money on one or more properties.

Check out my profile we are currently heavily involved in the Chicago area and always looking to network and help fellow investors! 

With our Gutter Guard business, we market very heavily based on our best ROI.

A colleague of mine invest pretty heavily in Chicago namely Chicago Heights.

Up here in New England the radio ads have been heavily skewed towards Than Merrill's Fortune Builders program. 

After having listened to some of the podcasts, some things that might work are:- Using listsource to create a targeted direct mail campaign- Using online ad words to generate leads- Driving for dollars- Lis-pendens lists (although these people get marketed to VERY heavily)- Put together a list of everyone you know (friends, family, coworkers, acquaintances, etc) and send out a letter to all stating your new career and ask for help in getting started (one of the podcasts describes this better in detail, forget which).In any case, I would say to keep educating yourself, and keep excited about your new career decision and life goals. 

People rely to heavily on what they read hear and are missing the big picture.