The only thing we can think of is he deals with a lot of international trade and money and maybe it’s OFAC we just get a scripted message every time we talk to someone so we got lawyers involved. 

You have zero control over the stock market, whereas when you do private lending, you have significantly higher control and contractually guaranteed return on your money.

They make their money off of real estate agents, but real estate agents are the worst people to make money off because they are highly unreliable and in and out of the business when the market changes.Their target should be the consumer with higher levels that they can subscribe too for data, since Zillow is linked to the MLS now which makes their data somewhere more reliable.

I know they raised a lot of money though

Money is money.

It would be a tight budget but I do have money set aside for repairs.

It seems not the best way to spend money.

If you have great deals and the numbers make sense, the money will come.

How much money do you have for a down payment for a new rental and how much can you borrow? 

If you have a chunk of money to get going I'd personally buy the biggest thing you can if you don't I think house hacking into a 4 plex is great.