No need for anything tricky.William Bronchick's "Wealth Protection Secrets of a Millionaire Real Estate Investor" gives a pretty good overview of entities.

In other businesses, bussiness methods are kept secret.

Rich...Congratulations... all that influence and a successful investor as well.What's your secret?

I just need to discover the secret of finding these deals.I have gone to some of the REI Club meetings but, most of the professional investors I have spoken to have told me that wholesaling is a bad idea in LA since there is so much competition and I should save money and purchase a property or invest with one of them.

I have been a professional Realtor for 7 years and a real estate investor for 10 years, and I just recently discovered the secret to buying properties on the courthouse steps.

The secret to easy management is tenant selection. 

A dirty secret in the data world is lots of data is just pure junk, IE addresses of random happy owners. 

But that is highly illegal (federal crime), and that would actually eventually screw them up, as the purchase price on the contract would be lower than actual, which would effectively DECREASE their basis, resulting in INCREASED gain and taxes later when THEY sell.When you close, there will be 1099s reported to the IRS for both parties, so there will be on secrets.  

What I always try to preach it that there is no magic pill, no secret portion or miracle when it comes to real estate.Good luck!

There is no big secret - it's about networking (I have been known to buy properties no one else even got a chance to see), about knowing how to cherry pick the MLS (yup we have made some fantastic MLS buys) and about knowing where to buy and how to quickly analyze a property potential / rehab.