Their terms change on a dime, and often contradict their own distributed documents.  

But its on their dime . 

Learning where the deals are and how to buy them, and get to do it on other peoples dime with little risk, you can also see what real established investors are doing and study what they do to see if it fits what you want to accomplish. 

Work out a deal to get your hands dirty rehabbing a project on someone else's dime and have them teach you the financials and business strategy along the way. 

This does two things, you can let him/her represent you on the buyer side so she's incentivized to make it work and she may give you info you need ("Seller told me his drop bottom is $120k"  "if you come cash to close he'll be willing to talk as he bought another house and needs to move asap"  "he's not accepting a dime under $140k"....etc). 

You can pay the assessments in a lump sum and avoid this (and the interest charges) but dumping $20K more into a property and not realizing a dime more in income reduces your ROI.

Usually anything under $15K isn't worth pursuing because you could easily spend that in legal fees before receiving a dime. 

Plus, the "loss" is only real when you sell, so if you can hold it for a few years and let the market recover and appreciate again, you may not lose a dime.

I start the eviction process 11 days after rent is due, not six months later.When someone leaves owing money, you should expect to never receive a dime.

In a seminar or class, I can control that environment and stay on topic.I spent thousands on my degrees, the only money I ever spent on RE classes was for my license and were due to some diddly class that had to be selected as continued education having a broker/agent license, otherwise I never spent a dime on RE educational materials.