Is it legal to solicit investors, and/or joint venture partners, or does a mortgage broker need to do that?

I haven't quite gotten the level of comfort to totally place my success on someone in another state, but maybe someday I'll venture out that way..I organized a meetup in Oakland on Jan 16th if you want to come out and see what other people are up to..

That said, though mine and my wife's work eats a huge amount of our time and will no doubt somewhat depress our learning curve, it does provide us funds to embark on this venture, just proving the good comes right along with the not quite so good.As a bit of background, an amusing (somewhat) anecdote: our current house, our first, may become our first flip.

Just wondering how your ventures are going in the area. 

@Joshua Dorkin @Karen Margrave suggested that I @mention her, you, Will Barnard, J Scott, and Jon Klaus for a diary that I'm going to do on BiggerPockets for our first venture into a historical renovation.

If the majority of you income is from some venture, then you can be seen as being in the business.

I have been trying to get my foot in the door in real estate investing for some time now but as everyone knows, a busy work schedule and family life leaves little time for pursuing new ventures.

There is so much bad advice out there and on this site; it is hard to pick just a few...You need an entity before you start buying real estate.Entities protect you from personal liability.You don't need a lawyer (or CPA), you can use off the shelf forms from Staples or such and such guru for that.Stay out of the stock market.Stay out of real estate.Stay out of lending.Stay out of angel investing and venture capital.Quit your day job and focus on making your investing your job.Keep your day job and forget about that investing nonsense.Follow Kiyosaki's investing and financial model.

If you want to do a cash out and pull out the max, you are gonna have origination fees, minimum of 1% of loan amount I would venture, appraisal, title work, reporting and recording charges and various other fees and possibily points.

I am not venturing to acquiring my first flipping property.