I am somewhat new to real estate investing, and have been reading this site and all the books, blog posts, podcasts, forum posts, etc that I can get my hands on.  It seems like everyone is trying to pull new investors...

What this does is prioritizes the folks that contributed the money (of which you are one of them) over the person in charge of the deal. 

Hedge funds are not buying with the same mentality many in the mid west talk about IE I only want max cash flow and could care less about appreciation.. these guys from what I know WANT appreciation as well.

That sounds eerily similar to the 2000-2007 REI mentality...and I don't think it worked very well for most of those people.  

Also, you would want a realtor or lender that are also investors themselves where they can provide you the expectations and hurdles of an investor to mentally prep you when you go through the process @Albert Bui @Carlos Valencia

@Helen Chau  congrats on mentally making the jump and deciding to do multifamily. 1.

They will likely have many issues, legal, substance abuse past and possibly mental. 

Think through this mental model with me.  

In the end, I'd much rather keep my apartment vacant than have it occupied by tenants with a culture and mentality towards their living space that doesn't align with my standards.  

As a native of Jacksonville, it is commonly referred to as a big city with a small town mentality.