People who are qualified to be mentors tend to be busy individuals, and may not be so inclined to pick up the phone and answer questions.

I did this before a number of years ago with loan originators for an old friend of mine, a RE broker out of Claremont CA, versus doing it for real estate investors - I tend to work best following a structure versus a script.

These tend to be the mom and pop private lenders and not the professionals.

The reality is that if and when I dont' know the price for something I tend to take the same process that I would suggest to my clients now (I package deals for investors who don't have time or money to learn via failures); take the info from the pro's (min. inspection report) and break it down into a spreadsheet like process.

Higher demand markets tend to have outsized asset price growth, outsized rent growth, lower vacancies, higher class tenant base and the such.A great example of this is one of my very first units I bought in Rockville in 2009,  I think I paid $270k or so, had an initial mortgage payment of $1700 and rent of $1900. 

The yard has not been tended in at least a couple of years.

I tend to look at local ads on Craigslist, Zillow, Facebook, etc to see the number of vacancies.

Don't be afraid to Jump In - sometimes we tend to over analyze deals and based on your educational background this may hold true... don't be afraid to jump in... the best experience you can get is by making mistakes. the best mistake to make is ending up with a cash flowing tangible asset

Life tends to be a constant game of meeting and changing expectations and when you take the first step in RE investing as, "I'm going to move into this 4 unit" you're stepping off with a great foot AND you are using the "silver bullet" of low down-payment financing the best it can be used.The primary additional benefits I find with 3- and 4- unit properties is diversification and economy. 

The main reason I don't send them with the interest is that they tend to be small anyway.