As I recall, the lenders in the 70s and 80s were all working for:Jake, the black-jack, Benny the bat, Bobby the blade (now with BoA) and Mike the Mummy (who just retired from Wells Fargo).As more entered the market more competition evolved IMO and while these guys all have relatives or were mentors to many in the business today, just like boot-legging, the business has become more respectable.I suggest you find your own hard money lender, like grandma who gets 1.5% on her CDs

I'm glad you found the bootcamp audio to be highly valuable and I'm sure you'll get even more from the other sessions you've got at your fingertips.For those interested in downloading the audio from the 2012 BiggerPockets Real Estate Investing Summit, you can do that here for $75.

I'd have better luck with the 48% chance of winning in Blackjack.

I actually just answered one of your questions on this weeks Q&A session.

If you explore the conference site, you can find the session synopsis for each session as well.I hope that helps.

You are in the Philadelphia area, so I suggest you start by checking out DIG at http://digonline.org/ - membership is around $150 (they gave a spin the wheel offer at the main meeting that can give you a nice discount off of that but you then must sign up at that meeting), and every year they offer paid training (usually four sessions) for roughly $80 per session (member price); so less than $500 for training specific to the local area.

In the sessions that I've attended so far, it's amazing to meet the wealth of talented investors.As others have mentioned, your age should not be an issue.

You attend meeting of your real estate investment club, and announce at a have/wants session that you are looking for a private loan to purchase a property.

You will learn more here than in any seminar, class, or training session that I know of.

It's just the nature of the beast and when you have done this as many times as I have and have say through executive session enough, you learn the nuances of this very niche within the HOAs.