Based on the Trinity Study, you could expect to be able to take 4% of your investment (in index funds) and have the principle amount retain its value, keeping up with inflation, theoretically forever.  

In there, you'll find an index of cap rates by market and asset type.

For the moment, the most I’ve been involved in real estate is my REIT index, also known as the lazy man’s landlord.

He or she will also answer the questions regarding conversion costs, market supply indexes,  time to lease up, 5 year projections....etc.  

I love the stock market, but my money is 90% S&P 500 low cost index fund and 10% short term bonds - Warren Buffet's recommendation.My active investing efforts are 100% real estate. 

Here is the article.http://www.mlive.com/business/west-michigan/index....Then MI was ranked as the #1 state by Thrillist.http://www.thrillist.com/travel/nation/ranking-the...A little good press goes a long way:)  We love living in MI & enjoying all it has to offer!

Last time I looked at SFCU's zero down jumbo stuff, I was seeing numbers in the mid 5s using where the index is at today to simulate the adjustment 5 years from now (when the index might be higher, who knows). 

If so, on what (LTC, index/spread, payments, etc., dirt plus build?)

They’re under the Store tab, or you can just go to this link: http://get.biggerpockets.com/forms/index/

I'm interested in using real estate investments to provide the cashflow for an early retirement.I have low 6-figures (and growing) in capital saved up that I'm slowly but surely dollar-cost-averaging into index funds, my investment strategy for most of my investing career.