He's still looking for the right place, though, which means I'm kind of stuck in a holding pattern as far as getting into real estate on my own.My question, then, is what other investment opportunities could I look for while I wait for this deal to go through?

Been following growth and demographic patterns and these seem like great areas to invest in.

Some of the real estate price patterns in Canada (Vancouver, Toronto etc.) is attributed in part to increased foreign investment activity in the real estate sector there. 

I'd also look at the zoning pattern in the area to see what the county wants to do with the land.

Granite, marble, or travertine for the fireplace that pulls from the mid tones in the floor and a new mantle stained to pull deeper tones from floor.

Granite is considered out dated on high end homes here in CA (Cesar stone, quartz stone, and marble- Carrera & Calcutta are the best options).

The post talked about how you should have a business entity (lets say an LLC) and also insurance to protect your personnel assets from any claims resulting from a mishap at one of your properties.Lets create a fact pattern, bare with me.

Looks great, at first glance it looks like marble.

I don't really know the patterns but knowing the general area that is kind of my gut feeling.The other numbers sound conservative though.  

Bryan Hancock was very involved with iFunding, was their biggest cheerleader on BP and  pretty much patterned his crowdfund portal and business model after iFunding.