It got me thinking:In your opinion, what are the minimum requirements someone should meet before raising money from investors (beyond family and close friends)?

Then you'll need to find land, acquire it, find a spec home buyer and set up meetings to design plans or buy a set online with mods.

Suburbs to the east, like Ooltewah and Collegedale, are more affordable—if you’re lucky, you can find homes that are right around your budget.Deals that meet the 1% rule are likewise present in the market, but again, you’ll probably have to do some digging.

Go meet with your broker, explain what you want to do, ask your broker for direction on what you can do, how to do it etc..

We should meet one day my dude!

It would be great to meet up sometime and I can go over the way we set up our lease options to help people buy the properties which is what I really want.  

Great to meet you via forums and will do!

I'm even willing to attend their networking meetings to recount the nightmare we just woke up from.

Write to Wagner for a meeting.

You'll meet a lot of other investors in the Cleveland area here.