I haven't been around for 10+ years so maybe they called it something different back in the day but I don't think REST means anything in the context of real estate investing (REI is a common acronym for Real Estate Investing).Aside from that, you should be able to find a ton of information through Bigger Pockets on the topics you're interested in by using the search feature.  

The feature I like the most is the "search" feature.  

They attend seminars featuring a variety of investment options offered by many different lecturers.

Just my opinion but unless it's in an amazing location or has some extra amazing feature, the money, time, and energy it would take to get a construction crew to level the floor is not something I want on my plate especially if the return isn't going to be that significant. 

Intuit just shut down their awesome awesome service of Intuitpaymentnetwork which charges 50cents / payment and had these awesome features like auto request payment.  

There was several podcasts featuring military members and teh challenges of out of state land-lording, and I believe @Brandon Turner did a webinar that featured REI while being Active Duty Military .  

Also, your featured article was a nice read.

But on the other hand this kind of thinking also just feels a bit like beginners nerves and it seems that getting started with a decent deal now is better than doing nothing.  

-  All the information you want/need is on the site -- you seem to rather ask an open-ended question to try to get people to regurgitate information that is readily available by using the search feature hereMy recommendation is to spend a few weeks/months reading this site, getting familiar with the basics and putting together a plan. 

@Howard Krieger welcome, use the search feature as this question has been answered a number of times.