Please let me know what you have encountered recently.Thank you, K Lynn

If failure is so common, why is it that I only encounter this fact in my third month of fact finding.

I totally agree that RE is a local market, but ours is limited and expensiveI will probably start with our country to gain experience, but in our case I don't think it is a good idea to stay in local market@Tom Ott - I didn't encounter turnkey, and I'll start reading about it

College is an utter scam for 98% of people.

I just lost a significant amount of money with a TAX LIEN CLUB that basically sold me their bad tax liens worth nothing in a state where I just could have bought the tax lien I wanted in the county of my choice.  But ...

So not sure if the "tenants" were legitimately scammed or not.

This is not a scam or a joke.  

@James Kojo- This is one of the biggest challenges you will encounter in the business of buying apartments- getting good financials and the details you need to move forward.  

One to rent and one for an option to buy so I don't know why you would have to be worried about an installment sale.If you're worried about Dodd/Frank or the CFPB (scam that they are) work with a licensed individual or get licensed yourself.

I think the risks across the board and the caliber of professionals you are likely to encounter would go up a good deal if you look at $100k+ properties ... that is not to say there are NO good professional agents etc. working in $30k properties, just that the incentives are not there and I'd bet the good ones are working more exclusively with huge investors in high volume.It doesn't make sense that the buyer's agent would help you much, though, because the buyer's agent would have to deal with all the same lazy listing agents anyhow, just as you would going directly to them ... but hey, if it works, go for it.