- Commonly Allowed Pets: Which types of pets do landlords typically permit in rental properties?

This is probably common among buyer prospects, too.

Hard money, which is most commonly from an institutional lender (either a broker with a white label setup or a lending firm), is generally available, but you will need to meet experience requirements to obtain funding from these kinds of lenders.

Sewer issues in Chicago are very common which is why I ALWAYS recommend / almost require my clients to get them done + if there's trees in front or in the back of a property, there will almost always be plumbing issues + needed rodding. 

I am for sure shifting my focus back to looking at properties in Rockland,Orange or Putnam as it seems to be the common census.

Why are they advertising that seller financing is available? 

Based on the graphic presentation of that ad, it shows Robert Kiyosaki, so I thought it would be great to attend this free event and meet him (similar meet the author events are very common here in NYC, so I didn't give it a second thought).

They spend a ton of money on advertising their product and apparently have none left over to spend on product development.

There will be a lot of agents advertising their market, and while this can be annoying, it can also be helpful when searching for areas to look in. 

I recommend setting up keyword alerts for each area as they are discussed in the forums daily with advertisements posted in the BiggerPockets marketplace hourly.One thing to note when looking at the individual markets, you can make or lose money in any market.