Population growth, job diversity, and low DOM (days on market) are significant indicators.

Over time, we have developed systems to handle these situations as effectively as possible.

I'm now putting a lot more into public markets (index funds, stocks, Master Limited Partnerships, Business Development Companies, bonds).

That is just not realistic in this current market.So in my opinion it's important to expose yourself to a large number of deals, so you can develop an intuitive sense of what's reasonable and what's not (and quickly discard the ones that aren't).And it's true that there is no way to 100% protect from fraud (and not just in passive real estate investments but even in public stocks etc.).

Research led me to a couple of videos of former ND players coming back to build development into the area.

Good morning All,I've been real estate curious to the point of obsession for about a month now, but in that time I've started to develop my tentative plans.

My partner has done HML for a large population in our market. 

The end goal is to have a piece of land with multiple houses: one for my growing family but also a home for my mother in law.My mother in law has agreed to foot the money on a new property/land up front and when ready we can buy land from her to build/develop etc. 

Existing deals will instead be saved by NOI growth driven by rent growth--if you have the staying power to hold on long enough.Supply:  High deliveries remain today mostly because of "hang over" from projects that are taking longer to complete than developers (and industry analysts) expected. 

These markets often have strong population and job growth and strong rental demand.But the reality is that even in more affordable markets like Columbus, you'll need about $50k-60k household income just to qualify for a conventional investment property loan (this assumes good credit and reasonable debt).