Also, in the back of my pre-licensing book there was about 4 practice tests in which I took multiple times.  

Construction is always a practical approach however; will not get you where you want to go very fast.

I believe this is common practice during a transition.

I'm a 63 year old doctor and a student of BP and RE investing but little practice.

In these cases, the specific sector was over-inflated and collapsed as faulty - maybe even fraudulent financial vehicles and/or practices were introduced to suck even more money out of the sector as it heated up.Just because the dot com sector eventually swallowed reality and fixed its fundamentals on value products/services, the energy sector resolved in the courts, and the housing sector flushed out its overly speculative practices (many of which were really bank-driven, primarily as loans issued to folks who had no business buying housing - and toxic mortgage packages created with weird names and no vehicle history to attract investments thus made with no due diligence and no 3rd party oversight - which took unprecedented government intervention and bailout across many sectors to fix), doesn't mean that the next sector downturn trigger doesn't lurk out there.What some call creativity or innovation is really just greed masked in packages so new and weird that due diligence is nearly impossible.  

I still think this is a common business practice, and worth noting that it's a practice that is done through a licensed broker.

Having statistics can justify single units as rental units is more practical as the MF.    

I can almost guarantee that they are not in it for the long haul like some small B&H investors.One of the things that I love about SoCal is that even if builders want to nut up, there are practically no empty lots near the prime areas left for them to build out, they can't build into the ocean, so the only place left to go is up, which they do but that is really expensive and time consuming, especially with CA building regs ... so regardless of if the market is super hot or just kinda hot (which is the SoCal equivalent of cold), there always seems to be a persistent shortage of housing here.

The more it hurts in practice or basic training the easier it is in the game. 

Not very practical.