She owns a retail store and I own an insurance agency.Would be willing to do out of area investing deals, but need volume in order to make the cost of a management company feasible and my $100K probably won't stretch extremely far on its own. 

So either your bubble is bursting faster than here or you were uniquely under pressure from costs and had to move very quickly.

Im 30yo live in Indiana and am in a unique position.

 $150,000 - $160,000 with things as the are and thats stretching it.

They normally just have a tax preparer (which is basically just inputing the information). 85% of accountants just prepare taxes and don't actually find unique loop holes and ways to reduce the investors taxable income.

The point is: other investors don't need to agree with your strategy, because it is uniquely your strategy.

Vail is unique, the people that fly their private jets in still came and still dropped $10k/week for a ski vacation. 

Note: I'm rather conservative in my decisions, so personally I'm more comfortable taking a smaller piece and not having to worry about stretching my credit too thin.

You can stretch those two a bit to get more comps.

I am not trying to say that job loss is a leading indicator, but rather pointing out that this period in history is very unique.