And I basically got to go backwards and recapture all the tax i paid in the preceding 5 years based on how crappy the RE market was and how the loss's most of us lenders and RE folks were taking.

Adding a property per year for the next few years will set you up very nicely for the future.It’s also important to figure out what your goals are and then work backwards from there.

My full-time gig is to invest in income-producing websites (digital real estate) and I'm working backwards to first increase the authority of my website to then eventually rank organically in Google.Given my experience building sites, I personally don't think SEO is as complicated as any agency makes it out to be.

So I would really focus year by year and see you're making tangible progress, but more importantly no moving backwards.

Figure out what you want, then work backwards.

The easiest way to get started is to come up with a target and work backwards from there.

Buy the wrong property, and that property + the interest only payment on the HELOC will mean you're going backwards, not forwards.

Hey Mike, good discussion and good that you have some clear expectations going in.As others have mentioned, since you'll be living there, it can be better to start with a subset of cities that you'll genuinely enjoy living in, then work backwards into data and metrics from there.For the cities you mentioned, here's a visualization of current rent-to-price ratios.

A good agent will ask about your ROI & cashflow, then help you work backwards to determine an offer price to make your numbers work.

You need to know What Exactly this $20k bill is for, then work backward from there.