It will give the basics of RE in a nice logical order. 

As for where I wouldn't invest, basically anywhere I'm afraid to get out of the car (Englewood).

You would still have the cash flow from the rents, but you've basically bought the property at full retail value.If this is the only property you can find right now, and it's not a good deal, I wouldn't pick up a bad deal just to get a deal.

You can even ask some basic questions through those conversations, and now you can ultimately see how the company will treat the tenants and the properties.Usually, a company charges 10% of the rent per month, but just pick up the phone and call around and ask!

Basically it boils down to this:  If, when you are purchasing a property, your intent is to sell it, then it's pretty much always going to be treated as Self Employment Income (Flipping), regardless of the rental and holding period.  

Give them a basic scope of work as you walk through.  

For me the criteria i've looked at and started to develop basically goes 1.

I registered w/Fundrise when I started researching crowdfunded CRE, but they've migrated their model to basically just offer "eREITS" rather than the option to invest in specific deals as the other platforms still do.

I've been heavily investing in RE for 2+ years and I often try to extrapolate the future based on my basic experience.

I am still very basic in my education of real estate, but I am looking to change that completely and do my first deal before the year 2016 is over.