I got lucky as well but had some bad apples pushed to me that led to skipped due diligence.

At that point you should be able to cash flow with a stabilized property and can look for I/O financing (typically Freddie Mac if you want a longer I/O period).  

Some of it was apple/cinnamon flavored. 

Yes there are unscrupulous people in each profession, but saying a whole profession is unethical because a few of their members are is ridiculous.An optimized overfunded permanent life insurance policy give less commission to the insurance agent as he or she is tweaking it to give the best return to the owner by lowering all the fee, including his/her commission.The long term IRR of an optimized whole life insurance is in the 3-5% range; The long term IRR of an optimized Index Universal Life insurance is typically in the 5-8% range.Yes it is not excellent compared to some 10-20% IRR you can get with real estate, but you have to remember that it is also tax free (so a few percent more to compare apple to apple).

Unfortunately there's some bad apples out there.

Apples and OrangesT-Bills are a safe short-term investment with lower returns backed by the US government and provide a very high probability of being paid.Syndications, assuming you have a good operator and underwrite the deal conservatively, can provide large returns but are long-term investments. 

It will make it harder for the Airbnb hosts to hide fees and make it easier for guests to do an apples-to-apples comparison between properties.Airbnb continues to be more guest friendly and more anti host.

Tons of big companies are setting up shop here: Google, Apple, and many many more. 

Apple, Red, Cuban and Praying Hand banana plants.  

I was mentally preparing myself to be without power all month.Tornados and hurricanes is a apples/oranges comparison in my opinion.