Depends who you ask and how secure you feel about your income On the one hand being debt free is great, but leverage allows us to build our wealth quicker.RE investors are notorious for being cash poor, so I would avoid thatIf youre able to comfortably save 100k a year and have enough reserves, I think buying leveraged properties is the best way to scale.You could kill two birds with one stone theoreticallyThey say paying an extra month a year towards principal saves you 7 years on a 30 year fixed mortgageUsing that logic you can add 2+ months a year on your primary, and buy 1 property a year and keep enough reserves. 

Although this is a long term investment and not in the main stream, it has added a certain level of comfort knowing the above potential investment risks are to a degree reduced.

The house is also furnished with a solid wood no spring couch, and a solid wood round dining table, and a king sized bedroom set in the master.

Sometimes the lofts are large enough that you can stand up comfortably, other times they're two mattess on the floor and you have to crawl in from the ladder. 

You're going to do very well at your entry point Don.I'll add this while I'm here, @Zach Lemaster has gone out of his way to make my wife and I feel very comfortable with our decision.

Face the fear--get yourself in front of more sellers.Little by little, your presentations will become more comfortable, and your success rate will increase.  

We need to be able to communicate and work together on this.If you don’t feel comfortable sending me the email list directly, you can send a generic email to the whole group (like you used to send the monthly updates )and ask who wants to share their email and be part of the group email with other investors so that we can find solutions together. thank you

. —- Again I’m not saying you have to do these things; it all depends what type of investor you are and what you are looking for however it is important to understand that if you shift the responsibility of either identifying the invest property or managing or any other aspect there WILL be a trade off — in this case the turnkey company has delivered on your goal of 8-9% ROI (projected... so TBC) and in return you have traded some of the other benefits of investing in RE for the convenience of not having to do much more than to look over the properties they have sent you and funding it from the comfort of your home, office, etc. ... again if this is the goal then you are on point but if the goal is to also partake in ALL of the other benefits of RE then you should understand that and not be surprised that it’s not a ‘stellar’ investment that checks all the boxes.

Get out of your comfort zone.

They took a lot of risks that I wouldn't be comfortable taking.