The cash from those businesses goes into stocks and RE for safe keeping. 

I wouldn't pay off the house entirely, as you can deploy that cash into more real estate or stocks.

It sounds as just like you got pulled in with a mastermind class for $10k, you see shiny objects like crypto or stocks going up and think your approach/investment is bad. 

It was the same when I was actively involved as a day trader in the stock market.

Almost all of the housing stock is 100+ years old so you're probably never going to see a home that is free of lead paint.

The lady probably in her late 50's, and the stock market just out of two years bearish.

Stocks dipped last week after labor data disappointed.

I've received different advice - on one extreme is sell off all your rentals, take the cash and take the capital gains tax hit and invest in stocks/index funds (not from a RE investor, from people I know who are horrified that I have more than one mortgage), which I won't do.

However, short of my stock portfolio, which I don’t want to touch as it does well too, I don’t have the cash to buy my first deal.

I feel like I'm in a rat race with my W2 job and trying to find deals in real estate and generate other income (stocks are my current choice).