You have the knowledge already, and education is expensive and takes time.As for the 2% rule; I honestly cannot see myself deploying capital for less, unless there is some other way to realize returns.Here in Houston, the home appreciation is historically very low.

By pure good fortune, I will be deploying soon so I actually will likely be able to get out of my occupancy requirement early and start renting it out fully in a few months.

My counter argument would be that many people have limited capital to invest with so if they decide to deploy capital, they want to ensure that it will be as much of a "homerun" as possible. 

For my self-directed 401k, I can borrow 50% of the value for various real estate ventures, and make real estate or other high-rate reasonably well secured loans with the principle (deploying 150% of the value effectively).   

I am still waiting though until I am finally stateside after this deployment before I get started, but I feel networking has already jump started my future.

If, however, you're talking about small periods before the cash will be deployed you probably are better off just sticking it in a checking account.  

In other words how quickly can you deploy your money, have the loan pay out, and put it into another project.  

Account ClosedThat is a real problem, and a reason to be somewhat conservative when deploying IRA/401k capital into a deal.  

The lender might be someone who is familiar with real estate investing and has accumulated some capital that is not deployed at the moment.

Air Force currently deployed overseas, and I have been reading and listening everything I can get my hands on over here about investing in real estate.