Sorry for the novel, and I look forward to becoming an active member of this forum.

The MLS has an activity search which will pull up any properties that are new listings or have a price change in the last X amount of days.

I live in Lacrosse, anyone know of any active clubs close by?

With regard to bird-dogging. the "Real Estate Act of 2000" in Illinois, talks of words like "customer" versus "client" etc. and, talks of "activities not rising to the level of 'agency' or brokerage".

By renting to them you are helping people who are established felons, actively breaking the law.

We have been reading and learning and this past weekend we attended a seminar that introduced us to a few more streams of income.

On your weekends pick an area and drive so you can see what other Investors are doing.

Being an "active" investor versus a "passive" investor, which is where the 750 hour mark comes from, will allow you to carry over losses in real estate to compensate for other gains.

I ended up working 18 hour days all weekend but I'm back on track, I'm getting closer to finish, and I finally get a few days off so the hardwood guys can do their thing.

However, during my 30s and early 40s I spent a lot of evenings and weekends painting, roofing and other "fun" things.During those years my friends always said, "you're sure lucky to have those rental houses", although they didn't realize I wasn't making anything/very little from the properties back then.