It's the same thing with a Stock.

If you leverage you'd get better returns, of course, but you can leverage stock market funds too.

Stocks and real estate generally offer greater potential rewards but also come with greater risk.The reward I am referring to is the cash flow, NOT the total return on the property including profits from capital gains.

Your financials are too tight to not have predictable cash flows on this property.You also could lose the home sale exclusion if you convert your former residence to a rental.  

Predicted cash flow is sometimes not realized, about half, or worse break even.  

He would also be targeting the stock market, and every single person's retirement accounts.

Would you try and sell a stock not on the stock market?

It cost a lot less than predicted and only took about a day.Regards,Allen Fletcher

The barrier is not technological capability - there are 10s of thousands such buildings in Europe {search on Passivhaus} - but lack of will (economic and political).Equally important, and potentially more difficult problem to solve, is retrofitting of existing building stock to achieve significant energy use reductions in a cost effective manner.  

That is why I invest in real estate and why I invest long term in the stock market.