One of the best ways to find a great real estate investment opportunity is through your business and social networks. Unfortunately, they are not really focused on looking for deals in any meaningful way. For that, an investor must develop a dedicated network – one that can help him find the exact type of deals that meet his financial requirements and risk tolerance. Here are four that help get you started:

California has historically been a major destination for real estate investment. For example, one major investment real estate brokerage sells almost 92 percent of its California-based listings to California private investors. However, California real estate can also be expensive, and supplies can be scarce. Nevertheless, there are at least six good reasons for why California real estate investment has been such a good bet over the years:

Making the wrong choice about a real estate investment can be a truly painful experience, not only for one's wallet but for one's ego. While the monetary loss will eventually be recovered, the shock to one's business sense is not so easily overcome.

Like most investments, the best return on investment in real estate typically comes from assets that either require more risk or require more work. While a stabilized Class A apartment building in Southern California might offer anywhere from a 4 to 6 percent leveraged year-one return, other investments can offer 30 to 100 percent returns.

Hard money lending is a very different animal than traditional lending for real estate investing. Instead of dealing with an employee checking off boxes in a file, when you work with a hard money lender, you're working with an investor just like you. This means that your communications can be much more direct and much more symmetrical. After all, your lender is looking for the same thing you are -- a profitable transaction.

There are seemingly endless infomercials on TV that promise a quick and surefire way to make money in real estate. For the prudent investor, one question should always stand out about these hucksters, “If they are so good at building phenomenal amounts of wealth through real estate investing, why are they selling DVDs over the air?”