What's your reason for going to college? 

Which is fine, because at the end of the day, we all do this song and dance for personal reasons.  

Weighing in late to the party, but I'll throw my hat in the ring: It depends.Bottom Line up Front: For the median person making $54k a year there is a lot to be said for forgoing the 401k and investing solely in RE.

For 8 years we sacrificed by eating out only on birthdays, no coffee, $1000 max budget for Christmas (family of 5), driving my 2001 Acura MDX for going on 12 years, and zero vacations.

That song is heart wrenching!

Now, even poor people are fat, waste food, have the internet, have a car, have Air Conditioning, live in bigger houses, everybody has access to electricity, gas is relatively cheap, we have an Over Supply of Oil, roads are relatively well kept, tires last longer, instead of a car going 100,000 miles they go 300,000 miles, clothing is almost free at 2nd hand stores, bundles of clothes are shipped over seas because they can't be sold here, everybody has a gadget that fits in their pocket that gives them instant access to anybody in the world by entering a phone number or email address or URL, can play 1,000s of songs, and has far more compute power than what it took to put men on the moon. 

(Or to put it to song- “You say you want a re-vo-lu-tion...”https://bisnow.com/national/ne... 

Or is that something you’d be willing to forgo.

Before that I have a clear track record of 100% occupancy for going on 20 years now.Another caveat, is that I do STR's and just ran into a situation, where I had an appraiser ask me for lease agreements for one my multi-family STR's.

I live in LA too and nobody’s being arrested for going outside.