Partnerships are earned through trust first especially when you are ready to put any sort of money down. 

It would be incredible if I can meet someone who can coach me through my first deal... some sort of a mentor. 

They may require a foundation (footings) of some sort, a different home set up, among other things.

If you are borrowing money, you are going to be using equity of some sort.

He's got all sorts of calculations and reasons.  

Selling for Quality lumber requires Sorting. 

Then sort down to 3 or 4 areas you want to try to make connections in. 

You can't go wrong anyway but you want to have some sort of boots on the ground to get you started and understanding the area.

Hence why WB said index fund, sure if ya got a few hundred mill - billion+ yeah, could you imagine trying to sort out deploying a billion dollars into real estate, yikes, what a headache. 

Again, you certainly don't have to verify it this way and to some extent that is why most invest with turnkey companies - it makes it easy and is a sort of one-stop-shop but I think your definition of doing your 'homework' may be different than my definition.