. - properties you can buy for 50% - 80% of market value) or...Jaw-dropping, hysteria-inducing, "pinch-me-I-must-be-dreaming" deals?

You need to get with a tax advisor as to your tax election for your LLC, that will have a bearing on how you will be reporting taxes.I find getting an LLC set up from LegalZoom for a note business to be rather amusing, pinching pennies and buying notes. :) Take care, you may get to be our test case for the SAFE Act, DF, and brokerage requirements being in the note business in an LLC.

Barely heard from them the second year, but last year, since the baby/babies or whatever is going on down there, has just been pinching my ***. 

You don't have to save and pinch. 

Savvy out of state investors start with an area where they have resources (ie they grew up in Milwaukee and have family who could run over to a property in a pinch).

Committing to taking action in real estate set off a chain of events that propelled me forward in my career and financially to the point where I still pinch myself every day to make sure things are real.Let's see how I did. 

Since there is not a monolithic cause, there cannot truly be a form of investing that perfectly hedges against each.That said, what I like about self-storage and B&C class multifamily is that they can perform in a stable market cycle but they also can profit on a down cycle because of what happens to consumer mentality in a pinch. 

That investment account has done great, but once the balance was high enough that I could pay off my mortgage (it was not a big mortgage to begin with) I decided I no longer needed to pay it off since I had the money to pay it off if I needed to in a pinch. 

My thoughts on this matter  to be taken with a pinch  of salt because what's good for you....Good luck

I pinch myself every morning.