I have been working my way through all of the podcasts (I think I am somewhere past 25) and have been reading as many posts and books as I can consume.  

Most hard money lenders only finance business purpose loans, reason being the differences in the way the laws are written between consumer lending and business purpose lending. 

It's a great platform to learn and network.

Obviously, the foreclosure and auction process will be time consuming and expensive.  

Investors are even worse than consumers, when it comes to minimizing the value of a real estate agent.There are literally thousands of things that can prevent deals from closing, which usually don't occur on the buy side because you're using cash and don't really care about the condition.

I bet I listened to six consecutive episodes that day and, over the days following, sort of neglected my bar prep because I was wholly consumed by the topic of real estate investing.

@Benjamin Von BlonReal estate crowdfunding is an online platform that brings those with the ability to find and execute on real estate deals with investors that would like to fund the transaction.

Obviously many smaller sponsors can bring forward good deals; however, if you can literally find no information about the sponsor online; it's not a good sign.The crowdfunding platform's management team - operating a real estate crowdfunding portal requires knowledge of at least two separate disciplines: real estate and securities law (and hopefully tech knowledge as a third discipline).  

Alternatively, explore the myriad of real estate crowdfunding platforms, and invest in several of the properties offered there, from SFRs in Dallas to huge student housing developments in California, to Class A office space in Manhattan.

I look forward to building some new relationships on this wonderful platform bigger pockets has created for us.