They get it with a stepped up basis and nobody has to pay the capital gains tax on the difference between your basis and the stepped up basis.If you specifically plan to sell, do fix and flips and get in and out quick.Buying and expecting to sell in 5, 10, or 15 years is speculating, pure and simple.

If you're not going to pay cash, I would actually suggest getting closer to 50% leverage (and 50% your own cash) as opposed to 20/80, from a purely financial perspective.

:)Basically, the two types of measurements ($/hour vs ratio measurements) are related but should be analyzed independently -- $/hour purely describes your returns as an employee while the ratio measurements describe the returns of the portfolio/business.Sure, your earnings and your portfolio's earnings may be one and the same, but you shouldn't be evaluating them the same way.

I fear what happened in your area is a pure speculative boom.

Of course, there are other numbers to take into account if you want to get more precise, like appreciation/depreciation, plus the opportunity cost of the dead equity....but to say owning a house is purely a liability isn't totally accurate. 

It sounds like currently I need to keep the solo 401k as purely personal retirement.

Fun Fact:  if you take a purely hypothetical 'break even' property at 100k with 20% down, where the rents equal the mortgage plus expenses, and assume that rents rise at the same level as inflation then after the first year your break even property will start to turn a small profit since rent went up, and while your expenses went up, they did not go up as fast because your biggest expense (debt service) stays constant. 

Returns will be much lower than other alternatives, but purely passive and likely less risk than the stock market.

It has never failed me yet but one must a bit careful with this stuff as it is pure lye (won't hurt pipes but it does smoke when boiling water is poured over it so don't breath the stuff in).Gail

There is a huge demand not only for owner occupied 2-4 units, aka house hack, but also there is demand for pure investors not looking to owner occupy.  2-4 units are a popular investment vehicle and is loudly touted from the roof tops in my circles, REIA groups and all over the web including here where the term house hacking was invented by @Brandon Turner, though I think I personally did house hacking before him, but didn't know the term.I have related in print previously about a friend of mine who bought, a condo, 3 townhouse, a 3 unit apartment, a 4 unit apartment building and a farm; all as an owner occupant.