It maybe have been one of those things that formal companies where using so they didn't need to look as appealing to newbies and small fish. 

I have friends that own subway sandwhich shops they are doing very well its a job but they are building true wealth.I have another friend that has the number one take and bake pizza place in PDX they do very very good.. and talk about free time .. he is always inviting me to go fishing mid week.So I really depends on what you want to do.. but if its just buy a few rentals well that's very vanilla and should not be any big blow back from others.. now if you telling them you want to give up your income and jump into RE as a newbie then you should defiantly head the advice of others.. because this business in Certain markets is not realistic to go from nothing to self sustaining in any short amount of time unless your already starting with significant capital behind you.Now there are areas of the US were properties are so Cheap you can start with credit cards.. but those are very management intense situations and defiantly not for all

Does the Walmart cashier with neon green hair tattoos and fish hooks in her lips feel bad if your card doesn’t work at the checkout ?

Remember to fish when fish are biting and keep the faith!

I've seen other advertisements fishing for "Premises Liability" suits - after violations are issued to a property they reach out to the tenants to see if they have been harmed by the supposedly "dangerous" living conditions.BUT - that's no reason to spend thousands "protecting" yourself in my opinion.

Compared to what you did which was househack a small  multi and the absolute best way for someone to buy their first property full stop.while there will be sub to deals out there they will a a very tiny fraction of the RE market as a whole so your fishing in a bucket instead of the lake..

I'm just a little fish in this big REI world, and I'm certain that other investors have more proven methods of investing.  

We tried to give it some Folk Victorian character by painting the fish scale details some fun colors.

Then you have the problem of finding competent staff to work there (impossible because they are all out fishing) and that is all assuming you can find a plot of land not owned by a native corporation which has electricity and public water/sewer.

Just an observation, wonder if most of them were just full of bs/fishing or what.