At least with the REIT's you get diversification and the minimum is very low.As far as pooling money with others, all people in the deal have to be accredited.

Which tends to limit your buyer pool.  

@Jake Parks - If you're pooling money together and providing a return for people/there is an expectation of profit for someone else and that other party is not involved in the decision making/management of the deal , then you are creating a security and the answer to your question is a resounding yes.The big thing you have in your favor with partnering up with family and friends is that you have a relationship with these people already and that's the biggest thing that the SEC is looking for.

This way pipes dont freeze .They are a business expense DESCRIPTIONHIGH / LOWPRECIPWINDHUMIDITYTONIGHT15 MAR Clear--7°0%WSW 27 km/h41% FRI16 MAR Mostly Sunny 22°9°0%W 11 km/h45% SAT17 MAR AM T-Storms 21°10°80%SW 22 km/h71% SUN18 MAR Partly Cloudy 19°8°10%NE 11 km/h58% MON19 MAR Showers 12°9°70%ENE 10 km/h78% TUE20 MAR Partly Cloudy 19°6

I think the sweet spot is 4-5 bedrooms, 3-4 bathrooms, a fabulous Master Sweet (since they are likely footing the bill), sleeps 12 - 20, tons of activities (installed a pool table, corn hole game, etc...), and in my location of AZ a pool. 

Residential propertiea have a much larger pool of buyers, thus higher demand, thus higher price.Whether these are two quads, or a single 8 unit will be in thebtax records.

Keep an eye on the yield curve flattening as short term rates begin to equal long term, this usually is an accurate predictor of economic slowdown.This is guess but I think stocks will be hit hard as a lot of new wealth was put into the stock market over the last cycle and the advent of ETF's has allowed investors to buy large pools of stocks. 

Older homes have more risk, in my opinion, because things may not be level, you many not be able to use standard/bulk items, specialty items cost more, you need to create a space that matches the house period, and the potential pool of buyers who desire older homes is smaller (at least in our area).

Interestingly, there have been several BPO's done, with walk through and everything, and the highest, and most recent value came in at ~580K.The failed Short Sale was actually approved by the servicer for $480K.I suspect this has to do with the Non-Performing status of the mortgage, my mother's age, and Massachusetts being a tenant/occupant friendly state.I had to terminate the arrangement of this Short Sale when I finally acquired unbiased legal/realty counsel, and realized that the sizable return (700K - 475K = 225K) would not only be an act of fraud for us to receive, but that the buyer was likely misleading us into thinking we would get this money.Since then, I really started doing my research, and am very interested in pursuing Real Estate Investing thanks to all of the hard lessons I've learned.I organized an off market pool of cash investors, and showed the house and took offers. 

At the least, you will have a bigger pool of lenders competing for your business if you finance under your own name.