I hear ya...a $100 a month after debt service isn't a lot.My approach...an approach I stole from commercial investors is to pay off the mortgage in 7-10 years to get to the "holy grail" of cash flow...all rents go in my pocket.Commercial property investors (those companies that build and operate large apartment communities) know leverage is great for acquisition, but horrible for cash flow.

One thing you want to decide is if you want cash flowing investments only - that is where there are regular (month or quarterly distributions forexample); or if ok with tying up your funds with delayed payouts, which can have you waiting for 2-3 years or more before you see any returns of earnings or capital for example.I have invested in a number of syndications, mostly from self-directed retirement funds, and I have documented the ones - from portfolios of single family rentals to medium size multi-families - I have made with a particular company in my BP blog series:  Have I Found the Holy Grail of Passive Real Estate Investing?

Before I got into real estate, I wasn't making enough money to salt it away in index funds and quit my job when I had enough to just follow the 4% rule.If you're unwilling or unable to make many of those life choices, you have no business investing in any sort of low-cost, well-aged, high-maintenance urban property and hoping that things are just going to work out because Holy Father or Jesus or The Flying Spaghetti Monster is gonna look out for you.

Holy cow I was having a bad night last night. 

I'd thought about buying in HK when I was living there in '09 and HOLY PRICED OUT OF THE MARKET.

Holy cow that thread has grown.

My husband and I are considering repurchasing a property we sold to friends 3 years ago on a street called Santa Cruz… hence the corny title. 😊 The property: 1900sqft, 3 bed/3 bath, built in 1951. It abuts a lovely pa...

Fall 2008Lehman Brothers CollapseHousing prices collapseBankers: "Holy S*#t!"

I wrote about these investments quite extensively and you can read it: Have I Found the Holy Grail of Passive Real Estate Investing?

Quad plex is the holy grail for our va loan.