Coming back with more money, a condo, and a wife i feel ive reached a time where my eyes wont wander again.

For example, if in the rental application you don't put xyz it's illegal and you can get suedif in the rental application you mention xyz it's illegal and you can get suedif you put clause xyz in the lease, it's illegal and you can get suedif you don't put xyz clause in the lease, it's illegal and you can get suedif you sign the lease wrong, the whole lease is void and you don't have a leaseif you don't provide xyz to the tenant, you can get suednot to mention how unfriendly my state is with respect to landlords, if a tenant is not paying rent, good luck evicting them. plenty of properties in my market for dirt cheap because it has deadbeat tenants and nobody wants to deal with them.yes in an ideal world I have 20 lawyers and accountants on speed dial who I can call any time, but lawyers and accountants are expensive and I have done the math, at best if you are really lucky you can barely cover your mortgage, I don't have money for a lawyer.

HML, private money, and OPM it doesn't matter.

My wife loses us money every year being a realtor but she likes to see her face on the placemat at the diner so I let it slide.

For instance, if I manage to raise private capital to fund a deal and purchase a successful rental property, how would this actually benefit ME when I have no skin in the game (i.e. money of my own invested)?

That is where we make most of our money.  

I was more than happy to walk away from my $2500 earnest money instead of buying such a rat trap. 

I'm just curious whether hard money loans are ever collateralized by anything other than the real estate being purchased.

Account ClosedWhen you are buying a property with more than one unit, lenders look at how much money you could make from renting it out and how much money you make yourself.

People make money in different ways in real estate.