Not many investors looking to do 2nds these days, after the 2008 crash. 

I mean I am an accidential builder.. having foreclosed on builders in the crash and having to finish the projects... so I have some very special education you only get when it happens to you and you have to figure it out.. was not pleasant. and it cost million or so.. but I got out.. and then I realized Hey since as the lender I am taking all the risk I mine as well just do this myself.so here we are about 150 plus new builds later and things are pretty good.Now to be fair my rock star in Charleston build a home last year then calls me and says OOPS house is 1 foot to low we have to raise it.. that's a brand new 700k home that has to be raised a foot.. cost 30k..

Can anyone recommend books or resources to get a crash course in lending options for real estate investing? 

I later purchased my second home in 2006 right before the crash using sketchy financing. 

This was a obviously a different type of pullback compared to the more recent real estate crash, so I would love to hear any differences or similarities.How did prices of real estate act leading up to the peak and thereafter? 

My philosophy is if you buy right and are conservative with your numbers, what happens to the market on a macro level is less important because you have protected yourself against a potential "crash".

There are people here who can survive a crash worse than the 2007-2009, there are people who will get devastated by the smallest of economic downturns ... 

They did not learn much from the 2008 crash and are beginning to swing back into a dangerous zone.

I don't need it liquid, unless of course there is a market crash coming, in which case I could use some of this money to buy discounted stocks.- If I go that way and use passive real estate investing via online platforms, which I never tried, I'm wondering if the returns are really at least 7-8% on average, as I read about it.

But with the crash I was able to pick up a small house in Norwalk for 150K with an FHA loan.