Real estate is much cheaper. Did you even read my post before going on your rant???? I stated that if rents pay the costs, you have other people buying appreciable assets for you. I said costs- those costs include maintenance, taxes, vacancies, etc. And Of course you stupidly assume that borrowing afgainst an asset isn't done by banks for some reason. If you have a property that has appreciated, and is still paying for itself, and you have also built up equity from loan payments, of course you can refi, pull the cash, and purchase another property. And it doesn't take hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is just ignorance. 30% down is enough, and you can do it with less.
And you may be uninformed about rental property and the housing bubble. Rents didn't decline, and vacancy rates for multi-unit properties went down. In fact, the vacancy rate was down so that apartment building recovered well before single family homes.
I have had rental properties since the early 80s, and they are both easier and less time consuming than fedex. The first was a rehab needing duplex that I got at a good price. Did the rehab, had positive cash flow, borrowed against the equity a couple years later,, still had positive cash flow. and purchased a 6-plex. Did some deferred maintenance, raised the rents, the rent from 2 units would cover the costs after about 4 years, had positive cash flow from 1986 through 2012 when I sold and retired. In the meantime, with money borrowed against equity, I bought and developed a single family home on a lot zoned for multifamily, and built three more units. Sold those, and moved to sunny California to retire. Long term, real estate is a much better investment that fedex could ever be. Ask Donald Trump.
I'd like to see the terms of any SBA loan that was secured only by the value of the contract. Maybe they'll loan based on value of vehicles, or you can pledge your 401k.
This took no special education or training, just some common sense and some due diligence.