For decades people may put $15k into their 401k, get a $5k employee match, have no access to the money or control over it for 10, 20, 30+ years, and they think its the greatest thing since sliced bread.Yet if you own real estate in a market like the Bay Area and are cash negative $500/mo on an asset that appreciates $5000/month people say you are insane.  

Gerald, I think numbers can be sliced and diced many ways.In this case I was using two properties similarly priced as a starting point.Yes perhaps four 2/1 SFR vs a 4plex of 2/1s would be better.

That's life, some of us would rather pay a little less for a whole mango, and sometimes some of us may pay more for the convenience of having the mango already sliced.

@Derek Scruggs Real Estate is a powerful business but zero to semi-retired in Real Estate in five years time is a pretty tall order no matter how you slice it.

I believe the consensus (and what was pitched on the podcast) is that doing both is wise any way you slice it.

By doing them myself I got by slicing off 7 lots with existing structures (very unusual case) for less than a couple hundred bucks!

Now, that I have enough money to do only smaller deals in rough areas by myself, they have come up to me wanting a slice of the cake.My question is...

Once I filtered out all of the higher dollar houses and went after the ones that are sixty five thousand and below I only had twelve available places to mail to.One courthouse didn't want to do any filters, they just sold me the list.It's a real hit or miss game to deal direct with the courthouse.If you can get a list, but don't know how to use excel to slice and dice to get what you want, I can help you with that off list.

You don't get champaign if all you can afford is iced tea without the lemon slice.

Or I would have tried to buy a slice of coinbase.com!