Imagine you guys go in on this deal with his cash and your loan and then you decide to never make a payment?

I imagine the market in LA is a bit different than what I’m looking at in smaller towns.

Could you imagine the public backlash if a bank called a note due IF YOU WERE PAYING IT. 

I have adult children living and working in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and it's hard to imagine how anyone can buy there who's not on top of the food chain.Your friend owns a lot of property in Barre?

Let’s imagine this attempt to find a mentor were your first REI: You find a house you really want.

So we can imagine buying a home for $300k in our 20's, living until we're 80, and having our heirs inherit and sell the home for $600k. 

Imagine if an app existed in which you could select a metro U.S. city and it populated a bunch of metrics relevant to real estate investing markets (e.g. population growth, unemployment, crime, job diversity, median house price, average rent, vacancy rate, etc).

Milwaukee and Madison have some areas of overlap, but I imagine the student housing vertical is bigger in Madison, for instance. 

One thing I can tell you, when I bought that first property in late 2014, I never imagined it turning out as well as it did, or eventually using it to move in to multi family investing. 

Making sure expectations are aligned is a great way to start a business relationship.Also - you're in a huge market, I imagine you should have no problem finding "an investor friendly agent in the Houston area." here on BP;)