Asking questions and conversing with neighbors can help keep you alert, participating when you can rather than just listening.

For the top program that was $34,995 when I went through the 3 day workshop 3 years ago is a bargain rate compared to other franchises I looked into that required at least twice that much to millions to get into the franchise.I have never participated in their Mastery Program so I don't have any personal experience with it but going over the information they gave me it sounds like all the stuff Subway, Budget Blinds, MaidPro, Re/Max LLC or Anytime Fitness would provide you with for training and mentorship.They are not marketing it as a franchise that is just my view on it based on the similarities when I looked at franchises.They do tell you that you can take the information from their 3 day workshop and start doing deals in real estate.  

I've found it's pretty easy to find mortgage brokers who can do NOO loans with 25% down, W2 income, etc. for buy & holds, but fix&flip-friendly institutions are harder to come by.

Many of the parties to this thread are also participating in this market ;-)

I look forward to participating in the forums and gaining knowledge from some of the great discussions I've seen here.Tom

Since I had been working a steady job, had a decent salary, and great credit score, I didn’t think this would be an issue.Another bump in the road: I thought I could go to a couple large, medium, and small financial institutions and have one of them take a chance on me.

Keep reading through posts, blogs and articles as well as participate in forum discussions.

As an investor/consumer, I have no desire to overpay or participate in fake bidding wars.

In this day and age these types of loans with respect to conventional institutions are very scarce and hard to obtain.

Most institutional buyers will require the transaction be with recourse, so make them pay for it and stress your ability to guarantee the payments.If this is a new deal, I suggest you get an appraisal on the property as well.