Otherwise, you're not really self-employed and the viability of the plan could be scrutinized.

Consequently, they may shift towards commercial loans, and most underwriters will scrutinize the property's Debt Service Coverage Ratio (DSCR) and performance alone, without relying on external sources.

Make sure you have an attorney scrutinize anything you're sharing with investors.  

Self employed borrowers are even more scrutinized in this regard, as they present more of a risk.

Finally, make sure your rehab numbers are spot-on.if you're going to gut the place, that means you're opening up the walls and the city inspectors will be scrutinizing you with their Infamous microscope.

@Mike Hartzog  thank you, I had not considered scrutinizing his deal before investing and to make sure that there's equity left.

Even if you are on the bad sponsor, if the economy goes well, you may not receive the promised cash-flow but you can still gain mostly.There's a possibility of wiping out though or zero return, but only if you invest in the wrong sector at the wrong time (let's say you invest in the A-Class hotel sector in 2019).The key is because (-) you actually buy the economy  (-) accredited investor only investment usually has lot of deals that's being underwritten and scrutinized very carefully ; so it all depends on the sponsor credibility (track record/vertical scaling/management/local experience)So in accredited investments, the challenge is finding good reliable sponsors.In my opinion, you should not compare real estate to crypto.

When this happens, if your family member will be applying for Medicaid insurance to cover the cost of the nursing home, then any transfer of assets within the previous five years will be scrutinized and the FMV of the property transferred will count in your family member's assets.

So that's something to research if you're going to use a credit card.If you don't have, or think you can get, such a credit card because your credit isn't that good, that that would also have been an issue in the case of an unsecured loan from a bank.Keep in mind, if you apply for most residential mortgages, they are going to look back a couple of months and scrutinize your source of funds, not to mention it will also throw off your credit ratios when applying for a mortgage as they'll see the new debt and its balance and payment will count against you.A better option would be, if you think you've actually found good deals, to 1) get them under contract and sell the deal for a fee to another investor (i.e., wholesaling), or 2) come to some kind of partnership / joint venture agreement with another investor or friend/family who wants to get into RE investing like you.Both of those would be ways to make money off of real estate knowledge / hard work finding a deal, without having to have any capital of your own.

Crunch the numbers and scrutinize every entry.