I'm doing my best to write this from a non-judgmental and purely inquisitive perspective.

I can understand that prior to 9/11 we could consider this kind of talk pure rhetoric.

I am not saying someone should not become a wholesaler or lender, I am just recommending that folks don't bother becoming a real estate investor(in its pure form, buying income producing assets) unless they are going to invest and know what their goals are and work to achieve them.If this is discouraging to you and you quit, good for you, you have realized that real estate investing is not for you.

I'm just talking about investing with someone that has the same skin in the same game as you do - rather than a pure 'sevice provider'.)Regarding the location, I ran up against many of the out-of-state issues mentioned here when I first started looking, until I realized I could find cash flow in the East Bay.

Their decision should be purely based on market analysis, loss tolerances, and congressional hearings!

As in: Yes we ruin the country the old fashion way, with pure capitalism taking money form the poor and giving it to the rich but you, you socialist you are doing it in a blasphemous way...

Pure gold, J.I appreciate your original posts and your follow-ups.As you said, due diligence is key.

All the moderators and contributors here are purely here based on their desire to give back...they are all unpaid.As for how many people I've helped, based on the feedback I've gotten, the number is likely in the hundreds or thousands. 

Ok for those of you who have read my posts I am a rookie land lordand I put some pretty fancy doo dads in my rentals they are c rentals neighborhoods that are a little sketchy There are bars on all the windows I think I am using that rating correctly.but I have a hypothesis which is born from an experience while living in new york during the 80'smore on that laterI put the big pull faucets with the pull out sprayer i opted for bead board back splashes because they were cheaper I almost went with glass but ran out of moneyI did floating vanities in the bathroom with water fall faucetsand I put down laminate floors and I even did an accent wall the prospective tenants liked it all but what froze them in their tracks was the shower heada relatively inexpensive square glass rain shower headwith the delta armhttp://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003064FXY/that froze them dead they were so anxious to get the apartment the husband started jumping around and ran and picked up an empty krispy kreme box from the living room and wrote their email adresss on itthere is no doubt that the other renos made an impact but this shower head for the money is going to go in all my rentalsthe pure allure of it for what it costs pays huge dividendsnow on to my hypothesisWhile growing up in New york I noticed that in the middle of some of the worse neighborhoods were people who had apartments with the african art the smell of sandle wood or some exotic insence paintings on the wall and book shelves and some nice potterythere were bars on the windows and under the smooth jazz music you can hear the sounds of city life outside these folks had created an oasis within their apartmentsI believe that you can find these sorts of people simply by understanding who they are which doesent take much just start talking about life and things goals and aspirations principles of living and dichotomies and the truly intelligent grounded caring folks will emerge in your mind.people who may come from the ghetto but are somewhat elevated from that existencewhether through education or a realization that it goes no where a been there done that mentality and a desire for more from their lives.artists, educators, construction workers, part time poets full time city workerswhatever.

But if they can't understand something that is not a pure vanilla account, then I'm better off with a bank.I need to establish a relationship with a regular bank locally anyway.