This is true even if the same person or group of people own both LLCs.

Best to use other peoples(banks) money,!

Have you ever noticed that people can send you a picture of themselves and then when you see them in person you think they look a way different?

A lot of open house activity happens over the weekends and can be filled with people involved in the real estate investing space

And if so, what are people's experiences with reliability in an STR, Google vs Alexa?

Real estate investing is not passive in most forms, and it's incredibly important to have a team of people to support you in your endeavors.

To get started, focus on discovering deals by networking with investors, pursuing probate leads, or searching for abandoned homes.

This is a great place to learn and to connect with people so take advantage of all the great resources.

They post to many sites and so people are finding it on Craigslist, Apartments.com, Hotpads, etc

Several things to contribute here: 1) Private Lenders with no credit experience emerge doing down payment and 100%/High LTV financing at the end of every cycle, 2) they're among the first to loose their shirts in every downturn, 3) although someone termed this type of lending "gator", it's not new, 4) the guy that coined it didn't get into real estate untill well after the last crash, 5) he has no real credit background or experience (he's never been a lender), 6) Google the guy's name and "looses professional license in AZ" to see what pops up, and finally 7) he's really effective at telling people what they want to hear, filling their heads full of hopes and dreams, getting them to buy his training, and his minios generally won't want to hear what a real, seasoned lending vet will try to tell them.