In my past 3 houses I did a buy & hold approach successfully, so I'll probably stay with that method.  

What is really the best way to approach this, thanks again I appreciate any suggestions!  

I'm looking to take a more hands-on approach to avoid the problems that I had with these 70 units. 

After networking and continuing to grow my career I got approached buy a firm that owned and managed 4,000 plus units called http://www.teamremanagement.com/ to be their in house agent for acquisitions.

My coworker and I have set up an LLC to purchase our first property, and we are looking at buy-and-hold rental properties to generate some additional cash flow - starting small and looking to grow over time.I forget what exactly I was searching at the time, but it brought me to Bigger Pockets and I'm extremely glad I came across it. 

I can't imagine your calculations add up the same after you put them up to a contractor's, or do you make your offer with a certain margin of allowable difference in mind or do you make a ballpark offer or an offer 'minus repairs' before your official offer after you've brought your contractor over?

I thought the same, but we have one good sibling who brought everyone on board with the sale.

No, I'm taking a different approach to my investing.

I have been doing quite a bit of reading, and I'm glad you brought that up about the valuation.

You should have no problem finding a good mentor if you try this  approach.