Friends, family, individual lenders, and have them put down most of the purchase and Reno funds.

One does not need to be a licensed individual if they are leasing properties out for an employer on an hourly or salaried basis.

It's as much a function of opportunity cost as it is simply looking at an individual asset's performance.$1000 rent is $12000 annual with $4k - $6K in Taxes and insurance

@Lucas MilburnIndividuals with self directed Individual Retirenent Funds allows individuals to invest those funds in numerous investments tools with one being real estate.  

@Matthew Gallacher well I have spoken to an individual out of state who inherited a house in 2015, it's vacant and has one of the red and white Xs on it and she is interested in selling it.

(to name a few):- RealBlocks (https://www.realblocks.com/), only for accredited investors, allows for secondary liquidity from P2P token exchanges for fractions of individual CRE properties- BuildingBits (https://buildingbits.com/), for both non-accredited and accredited investors, $100 minimum investing in individual CRE properties- Jointer (https://www.jointer.io/), for both accredited and non-accredited investors, allows you to tokenize your property by creating a land-trust and allowing Jointer to purchase equity in your property in exchange for cash (financed by token holders/investors who are debt financing at an interest rate equal to a CRE index), while you continue to manage your property and split cash-flow and appreciation profits with Jointer.

If it's still too much, just reach out to people on BP and meet up with them individually for coffee or a drink. 

It is best to establish a relationship with an agency you trust and then work with them on your individual properties. 

In most states, if the tax lien is paid prior to the redemption date, you as the buyer will pay the taxes, penalties and often interest back to the individual who purchased the tax certificate, or the county if no one purchased the tax certificate.

Just be you and provide value to people and treat them as individuals, it goes a long way.