BC, re your original question. I think there's a lot of truth in the saying "you never really know something until you can teach it". I think it is too easy to delude ourselves we know more than we do. Three or four coincident investment decisions re resi property doesn't amount to a lot of investment knowhow.....not that I think that's all you've done.....But I've met a lot of people who've grown their net worth by 600-800k via property, without understanding the forces that drove growth.
The REAs are the worst. Met one the other weekend, ex builder he told me.....driving a black Benz no more than 2 year old. As cocky as they get. We got talking about building and turns out he was just a laborer.
Anyways, getting back to self delusion....devil is in the deail.....re property, when you can do a back of envelope for most dev't sites in Perth, then I reckon you'd really know something.
And when you know a few of the games commercial tenants, PMs, and solicitors play to offload risk onto the LL....and when to deal with it aggressively or defensively, then I reckon that's knowing something.
When you can scan the morning papers for no more than 10 minutes, and the stock market for same, then determine whether to reverse a $500k position on several stocks, then that's knowing something.
When you have found the biggest p**#$k lawyer in town, to fight your unwinables, and have a win and a loss, then that's going to have taught you something.
But eventually, you have to put the books down and get out there and talk talk talk, then walk walk walk.....The learning curve is 5x steeper than any book, or this forum. Because ultimately, books and the forum don't train you to stand in front of a bloke on the other side, and get more of your way.
Have I attained all this? nope.....but have seen guys achieve various bits.