Furthermore, if you are having difficulty distinguishing things like emd vs downpayment, who holds the emd, etc it is very likely you will successfully execute a wholesale deal.If you feel you have found a good deal find a veteran and JV with them to learn the process.  

I don't believe anyone has distinguished between existing and development. 

Hey @Thom Soule, being a young property owner in my early-20s I also wanted to distinguish myself as the property manager.

I have received a few potential leads but I’m not quite sure how to distinguish which deals are good.

Unfortunately, there is no way to distinguish from the search result list itself which cases involve real estate or not. 

Otherwise, he may realize that you need him more than he needs you.It gets a little convoluted but it's fairly easy to distinguish what the deal would be worth if you farmed everything out vice relying on people who are bringing more to the table.

I wrote her a letter regarding maintenance call guidelines that clearly distinguished emergency versus non-emergency reasons for calling and what hours were acceptable. 

Is there any way I can start to distinguish good opportunities from bad ones so I can go into a conversation with at least some knowledge?

It requires hours and hours of reading various posts on the site to try to distinguish the smart and good advice and recommendations from the bad advice. 

However there is a lot of case law in other contexts that distinguishes equity (contributions) from loans, with the default being "equity/contribution".