I've seen many investors get burned because they failed to understand their hard money loan terms/rates, even if they did acquire what should have been a home run deal. 

For any of these real estate funds that have guaranteed rates of returns for set periods I would want to understand how my investment is secured.

If trump hadn’t won you’d be forced to sell this year, but hopes are high he will extend his lower tax rates. 

and it's not only not cash, it's expensive money - for it to be worth using you'd need either (1) something short term, like a flip (not recommending that here) or (2) a very high return that beats the interest rate you're paying on it.

Cash-Out Refinance – Refinancing one of your properties to pull out $30,000 in cash can be an option, though it may extend your loan term or increase your interest rate. 3.

They’re asset-based, meaning the loan is secured by the property itself, and they often have quicker approval times but higher interest rates (think 10–15%) and fees.

Those sounds like great rentals and vacancy rates have been decent - our management team only has a handful of vacanies out of the 300+ we oversee, thankful for that.

So in that a much lower rate of return is acceptable given the safety and certainty level of things. 

Just for fun my bookkeeper makes $50/hour which is 2.5X what the going rate for other jobs is in my area.

Although, it's very capital intensive and you have to rely on a lot of factors you can't control, contractors, interest rates, market shifts, realtors, buyers, appraisers, inspectors, material costs, weather etc etc.