Teri, the fact that you are engaging in a flip in itself does not present a risk.

When and where is the meet up session in Santa Clara .

I was listening to Personal Power II at the time (from Tony Robbins) (HIGHLY recommend his stuff, by the way).On Session 10 (if I remember right), Tony guides the listener through a goal-setting workshop.This is after 9 days of prep work, leading up to this session.For some context, I was fresh out of the military, working temporary jobs (like selling cars, working at the post office, etc.) making no more than $7 per hour.I had no clue what I wanted to do with my life, much less what I would be doing in 20 years.Having said that, I knew a couple of things to be certain.First, my destiny was up to me.If it was to be, it was up to me.My destiny, and whether I reached the outcomes I was about to put on paper, were 100% completely, and unequivocally, up to me and choices I made.They also were up to whether or not I followed through on those decisions and persisted in the face of hardship. 

Maybe you can consider partnering with the folks that have these skills and are trustworthy before you engage. 

I don't have the capital nor inclination to invest locally so I am currently researching the markets I want to engage (Ohio, Memphis, Indiana, Texas, Birmingham are all on the table).

I was involved in a foreclosure, so I shared my story, and engaged people with real life examples and quickly found out that I could avoid certain pitfalls by scouring the forums on subjects I was interested in.  

and MLS was still in books.. etc.I look at the BP as phenom  were all of a sudden people with zero knowledge or experience in RE can ask questions form many who have years of experience and knowledge.. just depends on how the experienced folks want to engage.. and of course there are a thousand ways to make money in RE and much of the profits come from folks that do it there way in their specific markets its not a one size fits all industry.So as it relates to what I see on BP there are two camps.1.

Understand that very few people want to be engaged in the operation of their condo association and even fewer want to attend a board meeting unless it involves condo fees going up.

I was HAPPY to engage in an actual dialogue) I digress.

2) When a lead gets to the website, does the website engage that lead with inbuilt marketing features to convert them to a "prospect" - i.e. someone you can contact but they have not warmed up enough to do business with you?