@Bret Rubash,To meet other REI people, you can attend REIA meetings to find others who share your interest.To get funding, learn how to attract and engage private lenders.A way you can learn to raise cash quickly is to acquire properties needing repair far enough below market that once you've completed repairs the fair market value is greater than what you borrowed from your private lenders to acquire and repair it.

Then, he got a raise to $13 and the owner told him that when Florida raises the Minimum Wage, don't expect to get another raise.

If you charge her she would see it as raising her rent, if you take it away she gets less for the money. 

Driving for dollars, knocking on doors, working with a mentor, etc to raise some additional capital.

You get the expense ratio down to 30% and raise the lot rent to $375.

If you don’t want to manage properties or the property management company, you have a couple options. 1) Just invest passively, but if you do this you will have very little input on anything as the deal sponsor/lead investor will be the one making the decisions and you won’t be involved much in finding deals or negotiating them.2) Become a deal sponsor yourself -- where you find deals, negotiate the deal, raise money, etc…but have a partner that you trust that likes and knows how to manage the property management company.

Raising rents is a good way to increase cap rate and that's easier to do if you have a bigger unit that is more attractive to long term renters and families.

If you can live with yourself if that happens, great, start lower...it's almost always easier to raise your offer later than it will be to lower it (although there are ways to tie it up quickly with a high offer and then renegotiate the price during the due diligence phase, although that's an entirely different thread...)If you absolutely "must have" this property don't mess around with a super lowball offer and go with something higher.

Wholesale, pick up extra shifts, work on the side, make some money as a side hustle to raise some cash. 

Or some external factor out of your control like a huge company moving in closeby could raise property values and rents, or an oil spill could really screw things up.