Basic portfolio management: If you concentrate your portfolio too much into one area (especially, non-liquid assets) you will get burned.

I'm going to stick to RE.)As far as I can tell, though, the vast, vast majority of single family homes (95-98% is what I've read) are still owned by ( 1 ) owner occupants, and ( 2 ) mom and pop landlords, despite all the institutional buying... especially since the institutional buying is concentrated in certain states and markets. 

What areas do you concentrate on?

There is a much higher concentration of them in the Bay Area and So Cal.  

@Pat Antonio  You're not going to find anything in that price range for 5+ units in Houston.You might want to concentrate on 1-4 family properties where you can find deals that make sense.Message me if I can be of assistance.

Then you have the other path you get into the business as a real estate agent/broker  either resi / commerical / land / builder etc.where you concentrate on commission income and build that up to then choose to invest or not..

There is such a thing as the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, and if you violate that, you are in breach of contract.That said, you can make your other offer expressly contingent on not getting your preferred property, but be prepared to show proof that your desired contract was accepted.Personally, I'd concentrate on the desired contract and not make other offers.

To make it simple, just concentrate on a max. of 50% of your current income as the total debt you are allowed to have.

You will need to concentrate on training them how to be good tenants so they understand the real world.

Glad to see you both agree on 8% cap rate as a rough guideline, which is dependent upon many other factors.To give further details, I am concentrating on a buy and hold strategy for SFR and small MFR.