I grew up in the real estate industry watching my father raise money with a PPM for large multifamily value add projects and a developments.

Big Banks like Wells Fargo, BOA, Citi, US Bank, and Chase utilize lending programs aimed to service large swaths of depositors.

We manage three large apartment complexes in two different submarkets in Indianapolis. 

That is just not realistic in this current market.So in my opinion it's important to expose yourself to a large number of deals, so you can develop an intuitive sense of what's reasonable and what's not (and quickly discard the ones that aren't).And it's true that there is no way to 100% protect from fraud (and not just in passive real estate investments but even in public stocks etc.).

Large construction projects.  2.

I would try to buy properties starting at a specific date so not large ticket items come up.

Or even a contractor that does large additions and then move towards ground-up stuff.

He has owned it for over 30 years and has no debt, so seller financing is possible and he doesn't need a large amount of cash soon. 4 of the 6 units have been recently updated. 

Plus, years down the road, I plan to split my time between SF and Detroit, so this would be a step in that direction.Another major focus for 2025 is a personal project: we recently completed a large ADU build at our primary residence here in California.

Personally I don't keep much cash on hand for emergencies, but I do have a large untapped HELOC that I can use in a pinch.