Ultimately I'm trying to learn the good and bad of mentoring from both the mentor and mentee perspective.If you are in the area (I live in gilbert and work in Tempe) I'd love to take you to lunch and pick your brain. 

As such I figured I'd drop you a link to The Ultimate Guide to Grading Cleveland Neighborhoods to help you assess the risk level of each investment you make going forward.

You basically have two choices right now, you can put more money down or have a higher monthly payment.  

Saved up a good chunk and looking to put that money to work, ultimate goal is to create cash flow.

If you do find a rookie agent that's going to make blind low ball offers for you off the bat it probably is not going to be a good use of their time and they will unlikely have the expertise to critique your investment choice. 

My question is which loan would be the smarter choice?

Just by joining you are taking the first step to financial freedom.Ultimately, you will need to decide on your ultimate goal for investing in real estate and then determine how you want to get involved/start.

We are in the market for a vacation rental in Western NC.  Got a very good recommendation for a realtor there.  Started working with him last fall.  After some initial activity and one round of viewings, we've not hea...

Ultimately, you just want to know your strategy and then consider things that can be obstacles to your strategy.

Found the deal on the MLS and offered slightly above list which is ultimately where the property appraised at.