I genuinely appreciate all these opinions.

I live in California, and I genuinely believe that our legal systems here, esp. wrt tenant-landlord matters, are very broken.

@Dainen VanGorkomAs long as you are comfortable working with investor clients (which you probably are since you are on this site), I would look around for real estate meetups in your area and attend as many as possible with the goal of having a genuine conversation with one new person each time.

I'm looking for a genuine answer which is fair. 

I'm not challenging, I'm genuinely asking so I can understand from a more experienced person that's done this for a long time and been through various market conditions.  

I mentioned your comments will be considered as "a friend helping a friend" as a genuine gesture to promote a fruitful mutually beneficial exchange between like minded people. 

I am not to the point where I need to or want to use private money, but from what I’ve seen and thought about myself I think the best way is to look around at the people that you have genuine relationships with, family or otherwise.

He seems like a very genuine, mission driven guy. 

The Brandon guy that is in all the BP videos seemed really like a normal genuine guy.   

(Roughly quoted as memory fails to recall the exact quote, but you get the point)While the honesty may be genuine, I would still make sure I keep my eyes wide open and myself protected.