( or if you have some insight and feel like gambling ) 1031 sounds pretty good but you don't want rentals. still probably the best play.unless you got that fire insight.

Because one approaches it like a business, the other a gamble. 

I'm ok with gambling on it.

Any other sponsor profile is gambling, not investing--which is fine if that is your intent, but see it for what it is and keep your exposure small enough to not injure you if you bet on black and the bead stops on red.So why do "some" syndications fail? 

TWO & NLYis where I park my reserves until I am ready to reinvest it back into RE.Had them for years & its been a great Real Estate play (until interest rates go back up).Other than that I trade/gamble with stock options selling premium for income.

I can do as much quantitative analysis as I want, there is an uncontrollable qualitative aspect here regarding what guests will think and the reviews the'll give.

Mortgage Gamble | Inside risky real estate deals leaving sellers on the hook | I-TEAM InvestigationJacksonville veteran warns ‘sub-to’ mortgage deal led to missed payments, foreclosure

Skipping them to save time or money is one of the fastest ways to introduce uncontrolled risk.

There are probably a lot of other obvious things they didn't think they needed to tell you either, like how investing in Section 8 properties can be extremely challenging at times, and doing it remotely is a lot harder/ less chance of success, or how whenever dealing with human tenants and physical properties there are a lot of uncontrollable variables/ things that can go wrong, that landlording is difficult even if it's down the street and a lot harder if it's across the country, how everyone in this world is only ever looking out for their own self-interests first, that properties that are cheap are cheap for a reason, that out of state investors are easy to take advantage of, that AI lacks common sense and can't be relied upon, that even the best spreadsheet magic is just a wild guess of how a property will actually perform in real life over time, etc. 

Treat it like feedback, not a gamble.