You will need to get a local, rockstar Realtor, contractor, lender, and property manager.https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/core-four-real-estate-tea...I invest locally in Columbus, Ohio

Or worse, they underpay and get an inexperienced accountant who then makes mistakes and makes problems for the next accountant who has to go back and amend those mistakes.

As for the hype you’ll find by the gurus on YouTube and other social media, even if they were able to conclude a couple of these deals (which is not certain, there’s a lot of lying out there), the fact that someone with 20 years of full time real estate experience can pull off 2 spectacular deals in a 20 year period is no way indicative of an inexperienced person being able to do the same in anything like a near term time frame . 

Which leads to was the sponsor inexperienced?

In my personal experience I was inexperienced and my company a brokerage (which are affiliated with many banks) held my hand through my learning process, paid me a base salary, gave me leads which I split my commission, guided me on how to attain relationships with realtors and how to generate leads,  they have many accounts with real estate brokerages where they are the exclusive lender which was a plus.

Nothing wrong with it at allThe ONLY possible problem is if the installer is inexperienced and/or does not have the proper fitting tool (proprietary).

In your honest opinion do you see any opportunity for an inexperienced newcomer to enter this market?

Not my cup of tea @Greg Strunak.

The recent podcast advice stopped me in my tracks as I have started to really question the judgement and advice that is given to very inexperienced investors. 

While there can be ways to secure your capital in this type of lending, in many instances that I have seen these deals go bad because the borrower was undercapitalized to begin with, both borrower and lender are inexperienced, and neither understand the risk they are taking on.