The discussion about rentals was great and I am very optimistic about what my financial future holds.

In my opinion, the monthly market condition press release that HAR does is very generalize and often more optimistic than what some local neighborhoods are experiencing so don't put too much weight in those press release.

Industry players are extremely vulnerable with high P/E ratios and growth projections that are optimistic.

In my area there aren't many 2 bedroom homes so I'm not optimistic about it, but I'm curious of anyone's experience with 2 bedroom homes in their area.Thanks!

Now, what do I say to my cautiously optimistic wife waiting for my return from work?

That said, me being the chronic optimist I am, I'm glad I came around to the idea of investing now instead of right before retirement.

My guess is that they are using very optimistic assumptions and not properly taking into account the difficulty of managing thousands upon thousands of rentals spread out across the nation.

Property price- 100KLoan-80k Rent/month 2,600Gross potential rent- 31,200 Vacancy- 3,120 (@ 10 % of gross potential rent)Management fees- 2800Net Rental Rev- 25,280Mortgage- 5,148Taxes- 3000 (perhaps I'm being very optimistic)Insurance expense- 1,800NET CF= 15,320

Now, that hunch may be on the optimistic side seing that I'm probably one of the last few ones to get on board.

is it better to be a pessimist, a realist, or an optimist?