I would look at the rewards offered by the home improvement store you use.

First buy yourself a small reward, you worked hard - celebrate!

I live quite modestly relative to my income and I'm young enough that I'm fine jumping into a job again if I need to, so I've got a pretty high risk tolerance (so long as it has comparable reward potential, of course).I've been planning on just making money off the investment income, but I've always been rather interested in real estate investing and it occurred to me recently that I will probably have an easier time getting a mortgage now with my income than I will in a couple months when I don't have an active income.

I’m trying to balance the risk and the reward but it seems like everyone has a different scale.

@Jeremy England, thankfully it only takes 1-2 a year to be rewarded for the chasing effort....of course, we're all hoping for 100X's that (ah, the good old days).

(Disclaimer:  I do not sell, install or get any reward from any vinyl flooring manufacturer. 

You all can share the risks and rewards.

http://kycir.org/2018/07/05/eviction-in-louisville...High cap rates can be enticing, but clearly the high risk comes with the high reward. 

So if I were you, I'd sell all your property, reap the rewards of your hard work, and 1031 them into a nicer area.

Has anyone ever joined the USAA Real Estate Rewards Network?