e-commerce store selling random stuff ranging from bamboo toothbrushes, designer clothing, and mini zen gardens.

@V.G Jasonmy point is just that house hacking is lower risk than, say, buying a random property thousands of miles away and hoping for the best (like the CA investor buying in Cleveland thread that we both just commented in).i didn't say no risk - all RE involves risk.

I selected Indiana to purchase my investments in because it's my hometown so I have more knowledge in that state than I would a random state and the numbers make sense for my personal investing goals.

Don’t make decisions off random reviews.  

Most newbie investor mistakes :- doesn't understand the very basic concept of cap rate, DSCR, price floor,etc- think appreciation is just random, something that's random gratifying on earth, think that the one that moves the price is the house itself and not market- inability to understand the market.There're just too many investors wanna invest here and there with minimum downpayment, simple math is showing with default cap rate of 3%, no investment could yield positive cash-flow if downpayment is only 10%.

In other words, if we could purchase a property at $400k, would that be a better long term investment compared to one of say $250K (I'm randomly choosing $250K as a comparative purchase price)? 

@Lauren Reiterman-start local or within driving distance-house hack if you can-start with 1 property-see how it goes-do not buy a random property 2 thousand miles away that you have to put 25% down on that nets you $14 a month after all expenses just to "get in the game"

The lender can pick who they ask, unlike an appraisal which is random.

I happened to start learning about private equity funds, stakeholder capitalism, and the housing crisis last week and also started getting more active on the BP forums.I posted about struggling with finding investors for syndication and got some good comments about why this is the case for many syndicators right now.One comment referred to something about FEMA flood insurance rate maps and that rang a bell in my head about a random old piece of land I got a few years ago when I was heavily into tax deed auctions in Florida.

I can close on a day of your choosing  ( when they only can if they can sell it to someone else)3. subject to my partners approval  ( when they have no partner its really random investors on their buy list)4. doing a home inspection ( really random investors doing a walk through)5.