Some said internet leads, some said use your sphere of influence, others organize networking groups, and a handful insist on farming.   

This has shapedmy personality greatly giving me the ability to positively influence peoplethrough communication and presentation.My foundation is solid , I like helping the community, an excellent communicator and natural born salesman.

2- is this dictated, or influenced, by the areas I am investing in? 

All that mattered was the the land lord tried to exert influence on a disabled person's choice of where he was going to live, and that's a huge NO NO.Please...never, ever "suggest" to someone where they should live.  

Follow-up Boss, KV Core, LionDesk, Top Producer.Facebook and Instagram have been great platforms for staying in contact with our sphere of influence.

Amit, I also agree with you that the spillover effect from SF is stronger across than the hipster influence like this article references.

The markets will respond as the costs of borrowing drop (interest rates go down) you will see a move into CRE or as the returns of less riskier investments such as T Bills goes down you will see a move into CRE.The market value of the property will be influenced but not based solely on cash flow, NOI or cap rate.

There are really simple scripts for working your sphere of influence.

Thanks Steven,You will have a hard time finding a lender that will do the refinance.Lenders and appraisers are the main reason why we stopped selling to investors looking to finance.It sucks but I run my business in a way that "If I can't beat it, I have to eliminate it"Appraisers these days are more worried about job security than appraising properties at fair value.They love taking foreclosures into consideration and it's not rare if a property appraisers for less $10,000 or even lower that the asking price.The lender gets to choose the appraiser at their own discretion so there is nothing we can do about disputing the appraisal even tho we can prove with independent appraisers that the banks appraiser is a gronk (Spent $3,000 once on 3 different appraisals just to prove a point to the bank and they still dismissed it).Plus, we are not in the business of influencing appraisers or having exclusive arrangements with lenders just to pump up the numbers.If we wanted to do that, we would be able to 10x our sales but that would be doing something that is against our core beliefs.End of rant hahaMuch success

I don't maintain any illusion that the important factors begin and end with the Census data and the BLS data and the price trend.But I am totally inexperienced with RE investing, and I have no idea how to consider and weight the influence of the "soft" factors.