First, government policy, loose money, and human psychology combined to push the home ownership rate to nearly 70% - nearly 5% higher than the "natural" rate of home ownership in the US - about 65% over the long term.Second, there was a related spike in vacancy at apartments.  

The psychology of wanting to own an investment property outright is probably blurring my thinking regarding looking at this situation purely from a cash flow/leveraging equity perspective. 

It's a pretty short read, but great book - I loved it.I've noticed from the podcasts lately that @Brandon Turner and @David Greene have been loving relating psychology to real estate and have talked extensively about handling rejection in a good manner to be successful in real estate.

I've been looking into becoming a real estate agent for a while now, I'm 23, just graduated from university with a B.A in Psychology.

I've been toying with the idea of writing something like this here for a while, so here goes my first attempt:There is an idea in the field of psychology called Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.

I apply Maslow's and McClelland's theories of psychology to my rentals with enough success that I make more than my official day job.  

And finding ways to game your own psychology can help get you out of an indecisive corner. 

The most important thing is find someone and do it consistently.Find a way to surround yourself with people that can keep you focus and uplifted, and maybe even seek professional psychological help. 

She lured me into the appraising side, but after some requirement changes (and me completing my BS in Psychology and all of the appraising schooling,) we decided it would be best for me to go ahead and become an agent.So, fast forward 3 years and now we own and manage a local boutique real estate business and have an ownership interest in 3 other local brokerages with the hope to keep expanding our model to other cities, while still managing her appraisal firm. 

Second, it's common for new landlords to transition to different forms of payment...what's funny is the psychology of the tenant (resistance to change).