Have a healthy contingency budget.  

Now in a Hard money lender gives you a loan, you still usually have to put money down, because they want you to have "skin in the game", but HML aren't traditional banks so terms are very different. 

Skin in the Game: Investment managers should stand to gain only if their investors are also successful.

There are more than a few ways to skin the cat but dropping $800K (keep $200K for reserves) into something that you have no experience in --- no matter what the category --- is dicey. 

There's many ways to skin the cat.

Glad my E book on out of state investing what to do and not do to save your skin  worked good for you LOL...yes fake lenders is worse than fake news.. there is no lender that gives below market rate loans.. and these guys troll social media and BP is a major target being one of the biggest in the world.how about the property investing forum in AU do you get hit there as well. ?

I have no skin in the game.

I've met a healthy network of real investors doing real deals at my MN Real Estate Investors group over the years. 

I have great credit (780ish) and a healthy DTI with enough capital for down-payments/points/closing costs in the bank.  

It's all math.Even with hard money, though, you need to have some "skin in the game".