I bring organizational skills, a financial mindset, determination, with experience buying, selling, property management, and renovations. 

I need a great escrow agent with great communication skills.

Any junior/senior from a top 100 college in accounting/finance should be able to give you 80%-90% of the same knowledge (without providing a pitch for their coaching/mentorship product).That being said, typically you will need:- Budgeting skills especially comparing against #s promised to investors vs. budget set with PM vs. actual operational results. - Capex tracking by line item for exterior and interior. - Marketing/leads tracker to understand weekly operations- Rent comp surveys (your PM should be able to help you with this)- Portfolio level (if applicable) software that allows you to roll up results by property type.

Carpet for the floors rather than hard floors; soft pillowy furniture.

But developing the skill set to determine which parts of town and which homes as well as the skill set to operate those two low-end homes as successful rentals, that usually takes a lot more specialized, dedicated work than buying a nicer home in a nicer part of town that you may or may not live in and successfully running it as a rental.

While looking for such job in the commercial real estate, think of the skills set that you either have or interested in accumulating as you will not be syndicating properties by yourself.

He hasn't been able to produce anyone else for me, though, and I've been trying to get soft leads for one for a while now. 

Whatever skill set you have, coupled with your time, may provide you not only the income to save but also an understanding of the business as well as contacts within the business.

Most mass shootings do happen at soft spots but most shootings at apartment complexes seem to be suicide, drug & gang related every situation is different. 

Another one is "Do Better Work" by Max Yoder; as you can tell much of my focus tends to be geared towards the communication aspect of the business but I like to look to other industries for good books on the top skills requisite of that industry (ie. service industry is a great place to look for books on improving communications and sales).