Questioning my strategy

[Wes Brand]

Hey, 

I'm new 'round here and got sucked into real estate because, well, the stock market isn't performing where I want it to, and there's nothing I can do about it. I don't like that feeling of not being in control of what my money is doing so...real estate. I can't control the real estate market, but I can control who I rent to, how much I rent for, and in general I have lots of knobs to turn if the investment isn't working out how I want it to, unlike stocks.

I was originally interested in long term buy and hold, but I have a feeling that I might want to take the free capital I have available to me and invest it somewhere else. When I run the numbers for buy-and-holds I use ~60% gross goes to expenses unless I have a very good reason to use another number. I assume I'm paying all cash (so I look at coc returns assuming 100% cash) to make it easier to compare across properties. The very best cashflow I've been able to come up with using that approach is ~10% ROI. I want better than that. I'm willing to accept ~10% ROI if I can guess that appreciation in rents will take me to 15-25% in several years, but I'm not sold on appreciating home values making me money. That sounds like trying to time markets, and I'm not smart enough(nor involved enough in real estate) for that.

My (conservative) goals are to end up with 50k/yr semi-passive income within 5 years, and 100k/yr semi-passive income within 10 years. Originally I was thinking I could add 10k of buy-and-hold rentals per year (depending on what properties were priced at, SFH or small MFH), and hit those numbers. Now I'm thinking that I may have been too conservative, and I should maybe use the free money I have for some other purpose that would let me hit my income goals sooner. Semi-passive (to me) means "no flips" (that's active), but also "no stocks" where the performance of the asset is entirely outside my control. I don't want a second job, but I'd like to be able to say "let's try xyz to bring this up to par".

On the plus side, I have access to a decently sized amount of capital. It's a mixture of low interest rate loans(~3%, no down) and cash. I also have access to a fair amount of possible mortgage debt on the basis of my w2 income. I'm not quite accredited yet, so I won't be eligible to participate in any commercial deals. I'm not posting the exact amount intentionally, since this is a public forum. I will say it's under $1 million and over $100k, but feel free to PM me if you need details. Before anyone says "house hack" I'm in SF. I'm going to continue to live in SF, and I'm paying well under market rents.

Any suggestions for what I should start researching?

(also, I'm not paying for a "guru" course. I don't trust that.)