As you said, having cash is a great tool but it comes with great responsibility and great disciple to make sure it is deployed into the right deal.

You simply have capital deployed, expenses and earnings, and the difference between expenses and earnings is your return on investment.There are two flavors of self-directed IRA plans.Accounts held by a custodian as trustee function much like a brokerage, but with a different business model.

I've got some funds I'm looking to deploy into rental properties.  

And there are strategies that can be intelligently deployed to make money in either case.

I grew up in the Harker Heights/Killeen area and my parents still live there and I think that Killeen and Harker Heights are going to be the main hubs for appealing to the military crowd; they can be consistent long-term renters depending on their deployments, rank, etc..

@Bill Gulley probably has a lot of insight on strategies that you might be able to deploy. 

If you can better deploy your capital then do.  

You are in a market cycle whereby the money cannot be deployed for higher rates of return than paying off debt,2.

@Aqil Dharamsey I am still deployed at this time but will be home in the summer of this year (around July).

If you are trying to achieve and ultra low cap rate that tends to be a 1031 buyer.Buyers with cash sitting around tend to want more yield to deploy otherwise they are happy making small deals and keep churning the money until the right property comes along.