There are a lot of much lower-risk markets that have also appreciated and are likely to continue appreciating where one can get financing and that aren’t 100% dependent on foreign investment and tourism (prone to crashing in down turns as discretionary spending decreases).

I would add that there may be (4) also, failure of investment strategy.some of these can be interlocked, for example if a investment fails due to its high risk nature, and the investment sponsor did not inform the investors of the risk, then some aspect of (5) would exist; if not fraud certainly misrepresentation.another example would be if the investment sponsor relates a history of experience, knowledge and success to entice you to invest, but for a large part his experience, knowledge and success are in reality not what he has stated, then we again arrive at (5) misrepresentation.Please understand that its easy and common for even very sophisticated investors to make bad investment, and even very sophisticated investors to get fooled and seduced by con artists.also please understand that with only a limited number of exceptions, the real estate guru industry is full of gurus who are not investment experts, they are in fact more likely to be marketing/sales experts, or front men for these marketing/sales organizations.  

I needed to get up to speed quickly, figure out the niche that made sense, and start rebuilding our business after the market crash.  

Well, what if you purchased at a booming market, then it crashes?

With you having taken the program, do you think the courses were built based on someone who already have knowledge in real estate or someone like me whose only knowledge in CRE are based on Forums, Youtube, free crash courses on financial modeling, and internet searches. 

Dave Ramsey had $12 million in real estate as a young 20-year-old in the 80s and it all came crashing down when something beyond his control changed in the market.

As previously was said, it depends on many factors.DFW has a lot of new investors that are getting crashed by wholesalers to enter in the business, so they are just making a little 10% or less in a deal.

You arrive at the same result mathematically, however you arrive at it using an incorrect method.

I prefer incoming rents arrive at the same time every month.

I recently had a guest cancel on the day of arrival due to heavy rain in their area (not mine)!!!