Great bunch of experienced and helpful people. 

The area has certain advantages like shelter from regulation risk (pretty much as low as anywhere in the country if you buy in the approved STR tourist zones) and long term security (people aren't going to stop going to Orlando anytime soon). 

People doing crazy stuff lately.

While this is a great and highly motivating goal, most people are either clueless or incorrect in their belief as to what is required to obtain this “lifestyle”.Understanding of the “how to” get there is further obscured by the misleading, and often patently false “pathways” sold by real estate educational MARKETING companies as workshops, upsold to association memberships, upsold to mentorships.

There are a lot of great resources here and around the web for people looking to invest in Birmingham.

There are lots of helpful people in this forum and LOTS of posts to scour.

A lot of people spend their time doing this, but it's not a good use of time because it can not teach you anything relevant without seeing each one in person.

The way I'm looking at it, if my spouse and I only do employer matching for the 10 years we would have more than enough in there and still 10 years out from being able to access it.I do plan on doing 401k loans for deals if the numbers check out, and I've considered rolling over some of our 401ks into roth IRAs to access our contributions but we'd have to pay taxes out of pocket (a big hit to cash flow) and we couldn't touch it for 5 years.  

People like it because you don’t need to own property—just lease it, list it on Airbnb, and make money if guests pay more than your rent and expenses.The catch?

Some people will push to get the maximum, even if it means they may wind up with nothing.