Best sites for do doinging crowdfunding investment due diligence

[Ian Ippolito]

Hi, every crowdfunding sponsor/borrower promises the moon. So, I'd like to hear other investors give their best tools/sites for crowdfunding property due diligence.

Note: I'm looking for sites/tools that you use to do diligence on the investments themselves, not on the marketplaces that they are offered on, or the sponsors. 

(I've seen several posts on Bigger Pockets where people posted generic and unhelpful information on marketplaces and sponsors like: "feel comfortable with the sponsor by seeing their history and reading their site information". To me, this is **far** too trusting and not very helpful. Anyway, as I said, I'm not looking for marketplace or sponsor due diligence: I'm looking for information on how you do specific investment due diligence.)

I'll start:

1. 1) Timing. Before anything, I need to understand where that particular investment type (apartments, residential, industrial, etc.) is in the current real estate cycle. Dr. Mueller, who pioneered much of the research on real estate cycles is who I use for commercial properties and is excellent. Here's his latestanalysis of the top 50 markets, split out by investment type.
   
2. But, I'm still looking for a good nationwide analysis of residential investments. Does anyone have any suggestions?
3. 2) Neighborhood basics:Zillow, Trulia, and Google Maps
4. 3) suggested to me: rentometer.com, city-data.com, and bestplaces.net

Also, does anyone use the Bigger Pockets Pro tool for residential properties and does it work for them?