You have already seen the downside of a historically zero appreciation market (zero appreciation I define as historically below the rate of inflation).  

Promoters of these private equity investments: I more fully understand how the whole promote aspect of these businesses skews the view we get.

somebody need to research that aspect first before commiting to investment.

I'm guessing that if I manage to be successful (haha, and there are lots of ways to define success) then I can branch out into other things such as teaching others who are in a similar position how to get started in something where the odds are stacked heavily against them.

Everyone thinks they can become a millionaire fast, and skip all the discipline aspects of it.   

There are not issues with giving funds, but you have to define how they are given - are they a gift, a loan etc...

For a "Professional" developer, defined as someone with 24 projects in the last 3 years, the minimum score drops to 660 and the down payment is only 10% with a 9% rate and 1.0% fees.

What aspects of leasing are you referring to exactly?

I wasn’t really considering the appreciation/depreciation aspect at all.  

. —- Again I’m not saying you have to do these things; it all depends what type of investor you are and what you are looking for however it is important to understand that if you shift the responsibility of either identifying the invest property or managing or any other aspect there WILL be a trade off — in this case the turnkey company has delivered on your goal of 8-9% ROI (projected... so TBC) and in return you have traded some of the other benefits of investing in RE for the convenience of not having to do much more than to look over the properties they have sent you and funding it from the comfort of your home, office, etc. ... again if this is the goal then you are on point but if the goal is to also partake in ALL of the other benefits of RE then you should understand that and not be surprised that it’s not a ‘stellar’ investment that checks all the boxes.