About 3 years ago they were vilified and despised, ask anyone who owned Inland Western (now RPAI) how fun the transition from private REIT to exchange listed REIT was for them. 

I bring the seller and buyer together to exchange the monies and receive contracts, etc?

It's time to find the community of investors to exchange notes with.

Here are a couple examples:1)  Looking for a Mentor - You could provide free labor or your time to an experience investor in exchange for learning the ropes. 2)  Looking for Deals - You could ensure you have all your ducks in a row and can close quickly.  

What we see there are being "hot" is the lower inventory and the increasing property prices.We are seeing rent-to-value ratios dropping slightly making the invest returns lower, but it is still a very good market economically and in terms of investment-grade properties.As a side, we've found that a number of our 1031 Exchange clients end up buying there for some reason.What is clear is that it's a Seller's market in San Antonio today.

I want for myself varies with a lot of factors, such as whether I'm investing from a 1031 exchange, how close the property is to me or other properties I own, whether there is a lot (or very little) deferred maintenance, quality of the area/tenants, etc.I may say in the back of my head, well this cap rate is actually pretty good in this market, but it's a secondary consideration.

@Mike Kalob, Coming in with the perspective of one who did my first exchange for myself in 1999 as well as a provider of them for clients over the last 19 years.   

I am offering my time in exchange for networking.  

@Brian StevensConsider selling the 5 plex and doing a 1031 exchange and buying a 10-20 plex.

Multifamily syndicated securities offerings can be structured many ways so whether or not a lender would view your securities as valuable would depend on the duration of the debt instrument they're using the collateral for, whether or not a secondary market exists to exchange said collateral for cash, how marketable the securities would be without a secondary market given how the offering is structured, etc.