It's unfortunate you took my advice as an attack on you or a defense of PMC's in general.There are a LOT of bad PMC's and I have no problem calling them out.But, I also have no problem holding owners responsible for their poor hiring decisions.We've only heard your side of the story and I've learned many hard lessons from jumping to conclusions with only half the story.Best of luck to you:)

So go ahead, sit the sidelines, yap on about some fantasy how some day it's all just gonna be half off.

Trust none of what you hear and only half of what you see. 

(this would cover my half of the rentals mortgage)-Move and use my equity to pay 100% of the rental mortgage and use the rest towards my personal house?

My guess is that your acquaintance was suggesting paying the equivalent of half your mortgage payment every two weeks.

You didn't know who to trust, half of all courses that were on the market were good, tons of fly by nite operators (still many of those), performance in websites was an afterthought... and in general the market had nowhere trustworthy to go to learn how to grow their real estate business using the internet. 

Minor cosmetic and efficiency upgrades over four and a half years.

Our goal as a family is to move outside the US in the next 3-4 years and live half way around the world for the foreseeable future (5+ years). 

Of course, if you can find a property where you can add a 2nd bathroom or maybe a half, you'd be better off in the random case of a toilet clog.

(half of 44k income is 22k, less the 22k mortgage = zero)I admit this is oversimplified, but I think I'm in the ballpark, right?