There is an infinite amount of money to be made in real estate, but ask anyone who leveraged to 100% on a huge portfolio in 2007, you can lose everything if you don't play the game right.

Granted this was close to DU or cherry creek, but even then I was questioning how you break even and not be forced to play the appreciation game only.After that I just stuck with SFR.

careful of taking an owner occ property and turning it into inventory.. talk to your tax person.you want to keep that 500k tax free in play.. the fact that your renting half maybe you only get half the tax treatment.and usually if you do less than 7 sales in a year your not considered a dealer.. but do check.. makes a difference on tax's  

@Ash Nahle & @Ming Lim If I could play the devil's advocate for a second.

If your goals are to just reduce your expenses each month then It could still be a good play. The

Are there financial funds, or companies that play the middle man / investing vehicule ?

I would never play the interest rate game with new credit cards.

My hope is that I can learn if my goal is reachable and how you would play things out in this situation.

If you're really interested and wanna play the long game why not start small with single families or multi-families that you can add value to using forced appreciation.

Renting allows you to play the cash flow game, refinance, get out when you need to and eventually have a hefty income stream after 15 years where you only have to expand when you need to.