I am currently embarking on a journey into real estate and am seeking comprehensive information about the prospective area, which appears promising.

I want to make sure I am at least a little diversified, so EFTs might be a great option.Thank you for breaking down the returns on the market for me as well, I at one point had a fair amount of money vested with the promise of decent returns so I wasn't sure if this was common or not.

@Alex Z - Yes, she deposited the check on the 3rd as promised.

@Victoria Creighton I will, I promise!

I have seen here on BP, and also seen some marketing emails that promise passive investment opportunities where I pay a promised sum and the company purchases the house, flips it, rent's it and manages them.

When you find a private lender treat them better than you promised.

Avoid anything that takes your money with promises that "they" will make you wealthy.  

Cash buyers generally push prices down as low as possible with the promise of closing quickly.

A real estate broker, for the purposes of this article, is defined to be a person, firm or corporation who, for a fee, commission or other valuable consideration, or by reason of a promise or reasonable expectation thereof, lists for sale, sells, exchanges, buys or rents, or offers or attempts to negotiate a sale, exchange, purchase or rental of real estate or an interest therein, or collects or offers or attempts to collect rent for the use of real estate or solicits for prospective purchasers or assists or directs in the procuring of prospects or the negotiation or closing of any transaction which does or is contemplated to result in the sale, exchange, leasing, renting or auctioning of any real estate or negotiates, or offers or attempts or agrees to negotiate a loan secured or to be secured by mortgage or other encumbrance upon or transfer of any real estate for others, or any person who, for pecuniary gain or expectation of pecuniary gain conducts a public or private competitive sale of lands or any interest in lands.

Echoing what @Major Robertson and @David C. have stated, you get what you pay for and there are a lot of "scams" (better yet, "under-qualified people, over-promising results").