I’m benefiting from being really close to the site of the soon to be finished Obama library. 

To me, that's a vastly different true cost depending on where you pay down the $10,000, so I'd be interested to know how you could consider it the same.

I realize the RE world is vast and full of scams, jargoned underwriting, salespeople, and crooks.

The vast majority of my tenants (particularly the ones I placed and did not inherit) have been great.

The vast majority of lawsuits against Landlords are for wrongful eviction, security deposit disputes, and Fair Housing Violations.

We found ourselves wasting an obscene amount of time doing our due diligence where we doubt that the vast majority of bidders actually understood the costs involved in the rehabs.

And even there, ready options exist where persons "could" do it all for pennies on the dollar of this prevailing fee structure and still that vast majority select the prevailing structure of things. 

If you would like to see the difference in websites, you can check out ours...the link is in my bio....it's a vast difference!

‘I agree the vast majority are small investors, or new to passive investments.  

The vast majority of "regular" or traditional (Conv/Govt) mortgages are originated by specialty lenders and brokers and are sold in the secondary market to provide yield on bank balance sheets (think Chase or BoA) or to be securitized into MBS.