Thanks Ned, Short answer to explain it, I did not know they were around back then, just found out now when we are coming back, a little background, when I started in 2005, I was a child :) 28 years old and thought I knew it all, all, all :), did not know about hard money lending, only new about bank loans, and Home equity lines of credit, did not know where to find more money, since I did not have much, I would rely on what I could get from banks, loans, credit cards and was not always that great, it was a learning experience.....and Wholesalers, I did not know that even existed, everything I would find back then was already on the market and through a "friend" agent, MLS, FMLS and all those, nothing like what we have today.

How can my online presence help me to grow my real estate portfolio?

Expanding your buyers list is key, especially in a hot market like Houston.

And that his understanding of business and economics enabled him to lead our country to establish the free market based system we benefit from today. 

People did not have BiggerPockets, YouTube, podcasts, or hundreds of books on real estate investing.

Its a great company for independed agents and real estate investors.

Still new here- I know I can find the cap rate by dividing the NOI by the market value but what's the most reliable way of finding the market value? 

Now that the market has turned rather south, recency fallacy tells us "short term rentals won't make money anymore, because they didn't this last year."  

I am a biased fan of Chicago, Illinois, because of the awesome real estate community here.Outside of just a good community, I love Chicago because:1. 

Make sure you do a deal that makes sense. by the way Michael is a good person to follow here about marketing.