Not to mention keeping the extra $59k more liquid.Take my opinion with a grain of salt, I'm inexperienced, and what seems to make sense on the surface, may not in the long run.

I am attempting to get some skin in the game, learn the numbers, etc etc and it is tough.  

On the surface it looks like there would be tons of information it can provide you but the stuff that would be the most valuable they have little information on.

For us, 2016 thus far has been a year of concentrated effort in the area of personal finance and investing, and I feel like we are learning so much every day as we take real positive steps for the future of our family's finances.Real estate investing has really captured my imagination in the past several months, and I want to become a more involved member of the BP community because I believe that will be a catalyst to invest myself even more and take steps to get skin in the game.

One of my concerns is having so much "skin in the game". 

My take is if an agent works for 3 months on a deal and gets it to the closing table,  they need to compensated well so that they know I'll take care of them when another one crosses their desk.   ....we don't sell real estate so I have no skin in the game.  

I always collect one full month's rent first regardless of how many days they occupy the first month and then have them pay the pro-rated amount on the second month - it gets more skin in the game with the tenant. 

Sure commercial propertyare going to want more skin in the game and cost a little more but at some point EVERYBODY has to pony up.

He has consistently bought one property a year.Get established with a local REIA (Real Estate Investors Association) and network for a seller finance or potential partnership where you bird dog a deal and have someone bring in capital that doesn't want to manage it (some skin in the game will always help get someone else off the sidelines and bring them to your deal.If you have solid credit call local banks/credit unions.  

There are debates in here and elsewhere about the +/- of the eREITs from Fundrise and since they're pretty new and I don't have any skin in that game, I can't render any meaningful opinion.