I started my in-depth study of real estate investing with the 'Fast Track Profit System' program by Cody Sperber.

You're right, it makes no sense to intentionally mess over your investor, but it is through the nature of mortgage investors and small brokers not having the depth of knowledge that unintentional things happen or a lack of risk management. 

I'll have to research that more in depth and see if something has changed.

At the depth of the Great Recession, the vacancy rate in San Jose was just a tad above 4%.  

@Karen Alexander  check out in depth property tax's in Texas prior to investing and then also check into expansive soil foundation repairs.. unless I lived there TExas would be the LAST place I would buy non appreciating to low appreciating assets.. you will not like it in the long run.

The systems also allow me to keep an eye on what is going on inside the business remotely without having to micromanage my team or ask them to tell me what they are doing everyday.I have gotten into a lot of the specific systems that we use in previous posts so I won’t get in depth on that.

As soon as I see somebody move out of their beach house in CA and it stays vacant for months on end is when I will start to worry, but I just have never seen that in my lifetime, even in 2009 in the depths of the worst housing crash since the great depression ... the only vacant properties were the ones the banks were holding as shadow inventory and would not sell, but the minute they put them up for sale in line with the comps they sold fairly quickly.

You got the simple answer, you got the in depth answer.  

There are also adult continueing ed classes for real estate that might offer you a more in depth understanding of say foreclosures now at minimal cost.

Not all custodians are setup to facilitate real estate investments which is where the Self-directed IRA comes into play.Please don't get overwhelmed by the in-depth discussion on UBIT/UDFI.