I am advocating, however, that there is great opportunity for them to be utilized in the real estate space, especially as a means to create counterparties for those who aren't eternally optimistic about the market and to bridge market-stalling bid-ask spreads with the physical asset, which would improve overall liquidity in the market.Your comments highlight the biggest frustration I experience as an alternative asset manager with one foot in finance and the other in real estate: both cultures have a dogmatically limited view on how things are done, which precludes each from dealing with the other in the ways required to pull real estate out of the dark ages.The first step is to educate real estate market participants on finance in general: how to qualify and quantify risk, the mechanics of options, etc.

If you can convince them on the idea that selling the property to you will be in the community's best interest and give them an alternative of what might happen if the property doesn't go into your hands (higher rents to cover the higher cost, not as caring of a landlord, etc.) then they may just change their mind.

We were interested in building a homestead with a variety of projects and alternative living situations. 

If Lending Club is not a good choice, any alternative website that I should look into?

Is it possible to get a loan for a down payment on a property? Maybe a private lender or possibly another bank?
If anyone has used this strategy, what are the pros and cons? Is it even legal?

So, a viable alternative would be to use Google Voice, and disable "call screening" so calls ring and go to voicemail.Question: Does anyone out there have good voicemail copy examples geared toward the "we buy houses cash" type business; that increase the likelihood of a message being left?

It will be interesting to see if there are other alternatives.  

Totally open to hearing any alternative strategies as well.

Does anyone have a good alternative to IPN?

They saw primary cities as oversaturated, so they moved into secondary cities,” said Roland du Luart, managing partner and head of the U.S. group at LFPI, a French firm that specializes in multi-strategy alternative asset management.Full Article: http://nreionline.com/investment/sam-zell-sees-lim...Agree, disagree?