One question for the community is: What are the next best steps I should take to further educate myself and get started in this industry to set myself up for future success?

However, they will certainly require you to jump through more hoops compared to private and hard money lenders. 

There are HELOANS - at that juncture, your best bet is to evaluate what is called the blended rate and compare that to an entire new first lien (cash out).

Many 506b deals are pitched to new students including ones that are failing and the students have no knowledge in this industry to understand what is being presented.

Hi Kwanza,Bay Tek (650-204-1512) would be a great starting point, but I’d also recommend reaching out to Adler Builders (650-398-9030) and Mission Home Remodeling (415-855-7269) for comparable bids.In San Francisco, you’ll need a licensed General Contractor (GC) to pull the necessary permits.

The recent surge in natural disasters has created an "Armageddon effect" on the real estate industry.

I do generally agree with the sentiment of Austin and the other hosts that fundamentals will always win out in the long run, and this by nature is a long term industry, even the sales side I'm learning.  

Where comps come in to to compare "cap Rates"  (a measure of financial performance) of recent sales. 

@Albert Gallucci as many have pointed out, in the commercial space of 100+ apartment buildings and offices, property classes have some pretty decent industry standards.We started applying these to 1-4 unit properties around 10 years ago, which you can verify on our blogs, because we saw too many newbie investors not properly taking into account things like, neighborhood status, tenant pool, property condition, etc.Unfortunately, there's no industry standard for this, but you can use some basic logic to think your way through your own Classifications.

One of the biggest factors at play right now is data transparency among lenders, we can see a lot of the industry-wide trends.