I think the horse is out of the 506(b) barn already for you to be raising money from anyone you didn't already know (or having someone you didn't know help you). 

@Alexander Monnin I've seen a lot of posts about this over the past and while I initally liked the numbers, I realized you are not comparing apples to apples.  401K is offered pre-tax, so you're paying less tax at the end of the year.  

Here's a few you may be familiar with: Steve Jobs (Apple), Steve Wozniak (Apple), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Michael Dell (Dell), Richard Branson (Virgin), Charles Culpeper (CocaCola), David Geffen (Geffen Records), David Oreck (Oreck), there's many more.I personally have a PhD in Business from Real Life U, a Masters in Real Estate from BiggerPockets, a MBA in Marketing from Bing Search, and a BS in General Studies from FaceBook...

. - 195 units here - That includes an 188 unit storage facility, 4 unit office building, pole barn, and my duplex that I'm house hacking.

Equilivant to closing the barn door after the horse is out.  

Apple, Google, Xerox, Fuji film, and Meta are all coming into the area. 5k people a month move to the area which has created a housing shortage, rent spikes, major appreciation (not just due to inflation) and you can still find single family homes for sale on the MLS in good condition for ~250k+ Tenant-landlord laws are landlord-friendly and taxes are low.

@Jonathan Hulen then you also need to keep the comparison apples to apples.

I think with anything you have a certain amount of bad apples that make the rest of us landlords look bad.

If I could, I'd spend all day at the barn riding, but that's not yet feasible for me.

I buy what I like or know, products I trust or use for example (Amazon, Starbucks, Apple).