@George Blower Thanks to you as well, however, I am curious if "metals" factor in such precious metals as gold, silver, platinum, etc?

That makes it that much tougher to get deals but when they’re had they’re good as gold.

Had some greats nuggets and takeaways. 

Why would you ignore that while putting all your eggs in one basket.I would put $100K down on a 2-4 plex, $100K into 3% CDs and gold stocks to weather this trade war storm (2018), and put the last $100K into my own business as a LLC that could be used in Year 3 to play in commercial real estate (5 units or more).In the mean time shoot for a 80+ business score and 720+ personal credit score while seeing if we're heading into a recession.

I DID make some good contacts through the vendor booths and have been able to turn that into some positives however the hopes of picking up useful nuggets were few and far between.

@Travis Cheney BiggerPockets is a gold mine. 

You know I’m a dreamer, but my heart’s of gold.

Take Yale’s endowment—considered the gold standard for its exceptional performance; 10% of its investment portfolio is allocated to real estate.

There are blocks that are gold mines; while there are other blocks that are terrible investments.

Having a great OnSite manager is like finding gold!