Ever feel like the saying "break out another thousand..."

[Jack B.]

...The one that they have for boats could easily apply to real estate? Except I'd say break out another 20-60K. I get real estate goes up in value, etc. but man, sometimes I look at the money I spend in transaction costs buying and selling, contractors for repairs, tenant maintenance, excise taxes, other taxes, taxes ON the taxes that I'm the governments sucker propping up the economy.

Take my primary residence for instance. I'm going to pay about 60K in transaction costs selling. I paid about 10K buying. That's just normal closing costs, realtor fees (I can cut this down drastically), excise tax on sale, inspectors, appraisers and anyone else I'm forgetting.

I'm walking away with a hefty profit still, but being a frugal kind of guy it pains me to see soooo much of my money go to transaction costs. Then of course there are the contractors. They immediately figure out it's a rental and the price goes up-up-up! 

There are days I just want to stick it in an index fund and pay only a few hundred dollars in fees a year...