They can look up previous sales in a given area that you an run a variety of calculations based off of.

I've spent all day on the phone with a variety of professionals, including the IRS, CPA's, attorneys and SDIRA custodians, who all have all given me different answers to that same question and most with different explanations why or why not.  

I think it is interesting the variety of answers.   

Additionally may will fail for a variety of different reasons.

They are all in stable neighborhoods composed of primary owner/occupiers in markets with strong 30 year population + job growth forecasts.Sources of risk come from a variety of sources, starting with (1) the market, (2) the property and location, (3) price you pay, (4) management strategy, (5) rental rate you set, (6) rehab budget, (7) service provided to your tenants and how strict you are with them, (8) your ability to attract and retain high quality brokers, leasing agents, inspectors, handyman/contractors/agents, etc, etc., (9) level of investment experience you have, (10) familiarity of the market, etc.As an investor, one of my primary responsibilities is risk management... my ability to fully understand all of the risks that I am taking and put processes/structures in place to minimize or control these risks.And if you are a successful risk manager, i have found that in REI you are able to mitigate the downside and generate returns that ARE NOT commensurate with the risks you are taking and do so by providing a triple win to your investors, your tenants, and yourself!

You should absolutely pay.Realtors have a large variety of responsibilities and motives, and the good ones will provide a lot of GREAT service for you, but this is quite the stretch.

You will get a huge variety of answers to this question.

Of course, there are a variety of ways to invest in real estate, either direct ownership of the property, holding mortgages secured by real property, etc.While certainly not as common as stock market investing, this is very commonly done and has been for decades. 

@Amanda Johnson - there are a variety of ways to split rental profit.

Granted, I'm aware that the main discussion here is note investing on real estate, however, I'm slightly curious to hear some feedback.Does anyone invest in other types of notes or paper outside of the real estate variety?