I see the benefits of using a real estate agent in terms of referrals and early listings and such, I'm just wondering if that outweighs the cost of using them vs getting your own license. 

The ability for growth outweighs the added loan cost for me.4.

Eventually listings will outweigh demand and you'll start to see downward pressure on home prices and perhaps vacation rental rates.

They say you make your money at the time of sale on regards to what you paid for a property but does location outweigh the price on this?

Cash flow and tax advantages of owning real estate over a long period of time will significantly out weigh the short term benefits cashing in on appreciate.  

You may come the conclusion that the (often drastically) reduced costs of residential 30yr fixed financing outweigh the liability risks (which you can mitigate with insurance).Of course, there's a limit to how much residential financing you can carry (conventional wisdom says you'll max out at about 10 mortgages).

The potential ramifications outweigh the risk in my opinion."

In CT as in CA, the value of the land can sometimes out weigh the value of the building on a property. 

So there was more cons then pros here but I think the Pros outweigh the cons and I always rent to military.

However, when it comes to buy and hold rentals, I think that with only $30000 in the account to work with, that the red tape and other expenses associated might outweigh any tax free benefits that I might get.Basically, in the other thread, I was just asking if it is better to just cash out of the Roth and take the penalty vs using that little amount to try to buy real estate in an SDIRA.