We were wrong and though I did not sit on the sidelines (thank goodness), anyone who did missed on on 4 more years of growth in the market in just about every location in the US.

What am I doing wrong...?

Depends on what appliance and what's wrong.

Is this simply something that exists in case of wrong doing in which after the fact, say fraud occurs, a case can be made that person a or b was not sufficiently competent in the matter before investing?

Saint Paul is not dead in my opinion and gives an advantage with owners running for the hills. 

You should listen to David Greene on Where Rookies Go Wrong When Looking for an agent.

I call it, "The Blind leading The Blind", or maybe one person in your group is a genius who has terrific real estate experiences, is knowledgeable about every facet of real estate, is a workaholic and the others are brain-dead 24/7 beer-drinking zombies. 

But if I’m totally wrong and you really are stuck, let me know and in 10 minutes I can tell you exactly what to do to get started and I don’t sell anything.

Nothing wrong with having the cash now to add more cash flowing properties to you protfolio! 

On the day of the install, my property manager serves her another demand for rent and notice to evict (she wrote the wrong amount so she had to redo it again) and the tenant threatened me that she talked to lawyers and will "counter sue me" with the health inspector.