I’m a relatively tough critic, but I’d say REI was the only one I felt had put the effort into giving realistic numbers and owned the entire process.  

Its hard for me to equate the effort and financial risk in fully leveraged rentals.

For equity, I usually see 50/50. 50% for effort, 50% for capital.

Nobody put 1/10 the effort into carbon capture that they did to shazam this new "Carbon Street". 

There is a very strong effort to ban them completely from R1 zoned areas which has made it very difficult to apply for a permit unless you buy a house which currently has a permit in place.

They do share their secrets in how you can buy RE using credit lines to pay down your mortgage off in 7 to 10 years.

It's not fool-proof, but I think odds of earning 7.5% using a barbell strategy in the average year on your money is 97% likely with very very little effort. 

Have I just discovered the secret to getting rich in real estate?

the only way i'd encourage you to invest in one of them though is if you're actually going to put time and effort into visiting and building a team and employing some kind of strategy. 

I understand that placement fee if one month is often standard for PM companies, but usually a lot of work and effort goes into placing a tenant.