We anticipate that once we're stable here, we would sell our house in MN (which could be years down the road) and purchase a duplex.

However like the other books/tapes/courses on the shelf, they don't do anything by themselves.I tell the folks, contemplating a course, at our meetings:You need to make a commitment.Read and Listen to the material at least three times.Make a plan to implement it.Review it with the Author.Do it!

Most likely, there will be some who you would not lease to, lack of stable income, credit issues or maybe they got out of prison for a DWI conviction.....what ever.Next, the family size, a teenage boy and two teenage girls and an 8 year old means a 4 bedroom at one thrid of their income, would you rent a 4 bdr for 500 bucks for example if the market rate was 800?

It's on a high shelf so you must bring it "down" in order to get your Oreo.

The income is from salary in a stable employment, and the investment is for cashflow purposes.What kind of specific info would help, based on the above?

Would you be interested in buying SFD and flipping them even within a year or so, build up cash and use that for your rentals with more stable terms?

If you stick to your plan and are debt free at 38, you will have plenty of excess cash to pour into RE at that time assuming your employment situation remains stable.

Don't go there, you get paid after it closes and not before, counting your chickens before they hatch will get you in trouble.Real estate is unique, it's not a widget you can accurately time from raw goods through processing to sales off the shelf.

I too have several thousand dollars of programs sitting on a shelf.

I'd also consider what type of work they are doing and if it was stable work.