Hi Peter, no the 3X means their household income needs to be at least 3* of the asking rent.  

All of their food waste, and typical household rubbish had been dumped down there for years.

If your 6 units was in a single property, you do something wrong and you have 6 households suing you, much easier to get to $5M.

Every day I go buy things for my household I decide whether the price I pay for an item is worth it or not.

-Annual Household Income (we have a minimum income limit of 3x rent)?

I suppose your point would make sense in certain markets and class-C properties where the average renter/household is earning minimum wage and seeing a 100% increase over the next 3-5 years.

there are 80M households in the US who own and 40M who rent. 

Long time lurker, first time posting.I’m 29 and my wife and I have a household income of around 200k.

Gaithersburg is probably the "poorest" of those areas with a median household income of $115k. 

If you have a track record of correctly tracking and managing your household expenses and maintaining a target savings rate for more than 1-2 years, then yes, I think the math leans towards investing in real estate (provided your student loans are at 4-5% AND your risk tolerance is in line with that decision).