(Tedious legal & IRS tax discussions omitted for clarity and brevity).As far as legal fees; I had specialists for real estate, tax & appeals and probably was into it for $125,000 in legal fees.

Tracking, I use a Google sheet with daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly, and annual objectives.

Before you decide, have a discussion with yourself about what your objectives are in REI.

Click2mail and listability have very good ones at a lower cost than many "specialists" here who simply rebrand and sell the same information.

It's true in a lot of things that general rules fall apart at the extremes and I think that's true with real estate where very low end and very high end properties are a world unto themselves and you really need to be a specialist in those markets to do well in them. 

@Thadeous LarkinPoliticians have successfully sold the public on the theory that mass regulations are needed to ensure social/financial/moral objectives are met, and that with these regulations chaos would rein supreme.

Also I would suggest going to a credit repair specialist or company to get your credit back on track.

Most folks using OPM would object. 

Take inventory of your investing objectives, risk tolerances, resources on hand (money, time, energy, stressthreshold, skill sets, knowledge, mentors, etc) and then explore how various invesent models fit.

Sometimes people will state an objection to providing so much info before seeing a unit, but I explain that it is for my safety -- I'm meeting strangers often at vacant apartments, or in the case of an occupied unit, for my tenant's safety since they wouldn't want criminals going through their home.