Whereas real estate you get in and influence the value of the investment directly by improvements and such, and you decide what direction the investment is going to take.They are both very interesting and I think a person's personality comes into play as to which vehicle they prefer, however in the "long run" they both done well for investors!

Least - I grow tired of tenants sometimes :) And, the weight of it all sometimes seems ominous, but I just remind myself that everything cashflows.Full time real estate is fun - but only if you LOVE real estate.

I learned the hard way when I tired to change the use.

Assuming that you are pretty young (large student loan balance) and that you don't mind the property management woes (no mention otherwise-- if you were tired of it I think we'd have heard).

The ones that fit into #2 have probably had bad experiences with wholesalers who:- Were just tire-kickers and never made offers;- Made offers but often backed out of deals;- Tried to get the seller to lower the price after a contract was executed;- Made closings difficult with needing to double-close or some other non-standard transaction.I recognize there are some very good, very ethical and very successful wholesalers out there, but they are a very small minority of the total group of people who call themselves wholesalers.

1) You get the cash flow now instead of having to wait til retirement - at which time you'll have to pay taxes on it when you pull it out.2) You can leverage that money to buy more properties.3) Real estate income is pretty much tax free anyway so what do you really gain by leaving it in a tax free vehicle that is only temporarily tax free - you'll pay when you end up pulling that real estate out of the 401k. example with some VERY loose guestimates on the numbers:100k buys you one house (worth about 130k) free and clear in your 401k.

While this person may only be a tire kicker or some of your competition trying to find out about you, the experience of asking your questions and starting to develop a buyers list will pay dividends in the future.

Will and John, are you suggesting opening a Solo 401k and staying away from the sdIRA entirely, or doing both with different investing goals for each vehicle?

Lack of curb appeal is a good sign of a tired owner who's ready to trade the asset.

The key to selling it is this: out of every 100 people you talk to, 50 of them will eventually go on to list. 40 of them will be tire kickers. 10 will really need to sell, and of those, 1 or 2 will be standard wholesale deal worthy, while the other 8 will need a more complicated strategy, such as sub 2.You need to find a way to monetize those 58 motivated people that you wont be doing a deal with.