Passive income was one of the biggest reasons for my second acquisition, I am trying to build a nest egg for my future self.

If you want to manage your own property, what do you use for phone alternative to your cell phone?

Also want our staff to be able to communicate with tenants from their mobile devices using an app and not their personal cell phones.Would also be nice to auto generate emails and or text messages when rent is past due.

This gives much better diversification protection across geographies, asset types, strategies, investment subclasses etc. versus putting all the eggs into one basket.The downside is that it's not for everyone, and a person has to be comfortable with turning over control to someone else.

We have a good amount of equity in our current home, we have saved a good nest egg in standard investments (that we could tap into), and we do have $100k + in cash. 

one option would be using it to BRRRR enough properties to generate the desired amount of monthly profit in the end. as far as cash vs down payment, if you want to build more wealth over time, i would definitely use debt so that you can buy 'more' ($) real estate. leaving it in index funds isn't a BAD idea, but if you have the resources (time/knowledge) to invest in RE & do it wisely, you will likely come out so much farther ahead. another question here is, how much monthly income are you looking for this nest egg to generate in retirement?

Quote from @Bill Brandt: thanks for the clarification, the parcels being sold are "better than average" the parcels being sold are on a private lane,  with mountain views,  have natural gas,  electric, fiber internet, and cell phone service available. 

In this environment I wouldn't put all my eggs in the STR basket.If your insentent on this then you must put a lot of effort into vetting the area, the rules, the property etc to make absolutely sure a given property will cashflow with conservative numbers and what your exit strategy per property is if they don't go as anticipated.

However, many of those properties are actually on ground leases, so its very rare that the shopping center owner is willing to parcel off a pad and cell it, more often than not they are retaining the dirt and the restaurant is leasing the dirt (generally $100K-$180K annually from most markets I operate in) and then the business builds the building and when they leave the LL gets to keep it and lease it to another tenant. 

Putting all of your eggs in the appreciation basket seems risky.Curious to hear the thoughts of other more experienced investors.