This makes it that much more important to supplement my income so I can be there for my family.

That being said I believe you can make money in the Portland area, you just need to be extremely picky and you'll definitely want to plan on having supplemental income.

I know a rare few people who make a living doing it . . . though it can provide some nice supplemental income.I believe that a well equipt real estate investor is one that has a multitude of tools in their tool-belt.

I grew up watching my dad buy foreclosed fixer uppers which he held and self managed and still owns 20 years later and he uses as supplemental income.

I am new to investing and would like to use REI as a tool in the future to help supplement my income.

I was fascinated by Deal Dog as a supplement to other methods of finding houses but now I'm concerned about the accuracy and how current the information may or may not be (after reading through the thread).

I'm hoping that someday these will help supplement an early retirement :wink:.

Because of that, I'm thinking that I need to supplement my income in the short term.

The end goal is to have roughly 5 rental units that are completely paid off and can help supplement my income and potentially give me the opportunity to branch into a different career/lifestyle.The main reason behind the 2 years of living in the units is that per U.S. tax code 121 (exclusion of gain from sale of primary residence), if you have lived in a unit for 2 of the last 5 years, an individual does not have to pay tax on the capital gains for up to $250k of gain ($500k for married couples).

My short term goal is to supplement my income.