In other words, it's a personal favor to you based on your existing relationship, rather than from someone who's savvy in real estate and loaning on the merits of the deal.I don't know of any list or software to tell a good private/hard money lender from a bad, but in general feel free to ask for a track record, other borrowers who borrowed from them and were happy.

Helpful to know any combination is accepted practice and is available to me as the owner.As for researching each professional, aside from word of mouth, confirming licenses/insurance, and comparing bids, I feel like the final selection comes down to one's gut feeling during the initial meeting and subsequent interactions.

Growth, in other words.

Then evaluate those markets to see if they fit all of the other characteristics, narrowing down to zip codes (this is where Census. gov helps) and then do your searches for properties that fit what you seek.Last words: I have learned that in real estate bigger is better.

I used words like “reliable” and “quality”.

Whether that be through a wholesaler, a direct mail campaign, bandit signs, yellow letters, billboards, word of mouth, etc. 

In other words, I don't know if there will ever be a "best time" to start.

Shares isn't the right word, but they get access to equity.

In other words that may be more of a correlation than a causation. 

There are a lot of ambiguous words in the first response because it is perhaps an ethical question.