If it's swinging a hammer, learn how to be great at that; if it's long term rentals, study up, know the areas you like in town, talk with property managers, real estate agents, and other lenders.

I would argue that if you have to go to a property and swing a hammer thats not really "investing" anyway.

So yes keep swinging and hammering way.

You can get totally hammered lending on your own if you don't have experience, which has been said over and over again by numerous experienced lenders on this site .  

The poles they use are like what you see for chain link fence; they usually just hammer them into the ground without concrete.

There are many situations where good intentions or just lousy, irresponsible, or uninformed owners could have caused this.Now you are planning to use the cops, courts, and banks as your hammer to wedge yourself into a deal?

REITS in a down market get hammered in an up market they do great.other thing you could do is spread you funds into small chunks in the crowd funders that take on non accredited investors.. if you spread over 4 or 5 deals the chance of all of them cratering at once is remote.. 

Of course, if your goal is to swing a hammer, then you send to a list of houses that are unkempt.

Just run the numbers and you might get so excited that you will soon be getting out that hammer to convert the garage!!  

You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we’ll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.