Build a relationship/friendship with an individual.  

If you don't close, there's no harm done, and you'll have a head start on filling your rooms when you do. 

Hard to imagine legislation coming out that would harm these folks, especially since these are the very folks with (thanks in part to me and my ilk :P ) lots of money to donate to political campaigns.

Individuals can find many different opportunities to earn income in real estate because it will never go out of style.

This was my first individual purchase of a property.

They each have their own thermostat so you can control rooms individually.

When an individual person gets a credit report from freecredit or Experian/equifax/TU it is a consumer credit report - not the same type as used in mortgage today.Some HELOC lenders are looking at using a Vantage score, another topic...Banks such as Wells and Citi stopped doing HELOCs this year.    

Individuals can never go wrong in real estate when you invest.

Other than learning about why and how they got into real estate, the questions should be catered to your individual situation.

Run these properties through the BP calculators and pay attention to more then just cashflow, watch your Cash on Cash return, Individual Rate of Return, etc. and get an idea of what a deal really looks like.