If (**redacting name of PM co**) Contracting would like to share the actual cost of repairs I'd be open to looking at those numbers as a reasonable cost.

The #1 reason people are poor, is lack of skills, knowledge, wisdom. 

The reason is because the companies that back these assets, and some others, have a 1:1 between their tokens and the USD (I'm unfamiliar if EURS, THKD, and stables of other fiat offer 1:1).A possible scenario would be that you offer the seller to pay in a stable coin, like mentioned above.

Rent coming in and time solve almost all reasonable problems.

At the pro forma income, the cap rate would rise to 8%, which is more reasonable but only achievable after renovations.

Private lending using retirement funds is my personal favorite (I've done a few dozen loans like this) for the following reasons: passive, low risk, and high returns.

What would you consider the reason for your success?

Interested as well for the same reasons.  

They didn’t give me a reason why my loan didn’t close.

That is just not realistic in this current market.So in my opinion it's important to expose yourself to a large number of deals, so you can develop an intuitive sense of what's reasonable and what's not (and quickly discard the ones that aren't).And it's true that there is no way to 100% protect from fraud (and not just in passive real estate investments but even in public stocks etc.).