My point is, real estate is in part a safe and generally successful venue for long-term investment largely because it moves and changes at a glacial pace. 

It took me a few years to get here with my wife from Viet Nam and they looked up our buttox with a microscope to make sure there was no wedding fraud.  

@William Skelley   As you state with crowd funding being the new model on the block its nice to see these companies come up and compete against traditional lending Venues and the HUGE one is an alternative to smaller builder developers or RE entrepreneurs that need capital and would have to try to do their own PPM type of raise.

She found a beaten up triplex for $198,000 in a better block and it has paid for student loans, a wedding and living expenses when times were real tough.

Buying to hold is like getting married, you don't cheap out on the wedding, and you got to think long term.

In my experience, at least for long-term holdings, understanding and considering the long term effects of today's decisions will allow you to maximize your ROI over the life of your investment.NARPM offers a venue where (generally) multi-property PM's can share and learn from each other.

Probably the best one to look into is the NEREIA in Chelmsford (1st Wed on the month).

I just closed one today in Chicago loan request came in one Wed.

I'm very bummed I couldn't make it; it sounds like it was a big success (and they need a new venue because so many people came).

There are plenty of legal sign venues but these people that use them (in my areas) in my opinion are cheap (not frugal) have no regard for the law, do not disclose their full agenda and affiliations,  are full of half truths and unscrupulous to begin with.