Like Mija noted, they cost real money and time to maintain, and I simply was not deriving enough value from either.I had no intention of GC-ing jobs for clients, which is about all it would have allowed me to do that I can't do already.  

Problem is only "RE pros" get to do it.There are 3 income classifications in the US - Active, Portfolio, and PassiveActive income is income derived from your job, or normal trade or business.Portfolio income is derived from bank instruments - stocks, bonds, etc.Passive income is income earned from investments.Active losses can wipe out both passive and portfolio income, but it doesn't work the other way around.Portfolio (capital) losses are limited to $3,000 annually.Passive losses can only be offset by passive gains.Real estate rental income by its nature is deemed passive per IRC Sec 469One way to get around it is to become a pro - spend more than 750 hours or 1/2 your time in real estate.But most folks aren't real estate pros.

It is a well derived scam.

You would only pay taxes on all passive investments in a traditional SDIRA at distribution, unless you have a mortgage, then the portion of the income derived because of the mortgage will be subject to UDFI (unrelated debt finance income) which will trigger UBIT (unrelated business income tax). 

Also, part of the contractor's profit is derived from the material mark up.

Megan Luckily the math part isnt too high level just addition, subtraction, some mulitplication and division but we as a community can all help you through it.Leave the complicated math for the wall street quantative analysts and derivative traders.

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I don't agree with your lender that you have to live in the property if you are using a conventional loan, but depends on what product they are giving you, maybe a work around for that.I would not purchase based solely on what income you can derive from STR.

These self employed 2nd mtg's are typically based on alternative method of caluclation like profit and loss statements if you're self employed or the last 12 months of bank statement deposits using a formula to derive an income from these deposits (like 50% of all annual rolling 12 calendar month deposits X 50% /12 months = monthly income).

Its more like 98/2 with an additional 5% saying they do stuff so they can get a piece of someone else's hard work while they have not done anything and live in their mom's basement.All that said there is value well over the cost for those who apply themselves to deriving the value.