And once the market rebounds and investors lick their paper wounds from equities, there will be another rush to diversify into real estate. 

I invested out of state and made multiple trips to areas I wound up investing in.

That's want I wound up doing?

Not that it helps, but I will let it be known to all of my colleagues, friends and family to stay far far away from Hometown Plumbing.Final salt in the wound - we agreed to meet him at the permitting office with a certified check at 1 pm and he was an hour and a half late without calling.  

@Nicole Dent, I also wound up going with Foremost. 

Wound up 60K underwater 2 years later, with hard money loan due in 5 years and first mortgage pick-a-payment loan set to turn into a pumpkin in 5 years.

Instead of learning from the school of hard knocks, getting educated, becoming better at it and licking your wounds, you want them to pay for your education. 

I was eager to get going, so I did a refi a little earlier than I otherwise would have done, and got a "you never know" HELOC that I never wound up needing/using. 

Beyond that, time tends to heal a lot of real estate wounds, which is why you've found that the NY property ended up doing well despite having no idea what you were doing.

I didn't move forward with the purchase so I wound up not using a PL.