Don’t come to my market and try to compete with me when I have advantages, it’ll be an uphill battle and you’ll get adversely selected against because you don’t know the market.

We made it work anyway but it was hard and we were lucky; lucky we were in a rising market and lucky that between the two of us we just happened to have just the skill sets that were required to overcome our newbie error in location selection, and lucky that we both are able and willing to learn from our mistakes... and due to inordinate stubbornness, it took me a good long while, (several years not months) to even realize that we had made a mistake.

I am also not adverse to other real estate investment opportunities such as providing financing, note investing, partnering, etc. as long as the numbers and scenarios make sense.

Any other mistake you might make can be overcome, but if you buy in a bad neighborhood, you can't move the house.

Any mistake you might make can be overcome except for buying in a bad area.

Still working on overcoming my nervousness of using leverage for funding deals.

In CO, we are required to send a Reason For Denial Letter and can combine it with an Adverse Action letter when rejecting an application.  

Now I am trying to help 1st time investors overcome all of their barriers!

Is this a common problem and does anyone have any tips to overcome it?

You are also held to strict reporting times for adverse action letters, data storage requirements, and safeguarding of sensitive information.