It's just a shame that grown adults will spend a considerable amount of money to rent a well kept home, and then revert to adolescent behavior while staying.

My expenses have grown at a rate greater than inflation and rents over the last 10 years and my kids don't have any expensive hobbies like hockey.

I am still amazed at how large the internet has grown, and how fast the download speeds have become. 

Since UC Merced has been around, the town has grown 10 fold and will continue too.

For now, the outcome is that we have grown the value of this property tremendously.

I would imagine rents haven't grown that much either. 

If your going to be passive, you may as well get a loan and start building equity so that in 20 years it's paid off and now your 250K has grown to over 1 million plus.  

Have Sundays off to go to Church with my family.I will say this to the parents that have children still at home.. don’t wait till their grown to spend time with them. 

@Chris ReyesMy father died and had no money nor asset to his name to leave to his family... luckily his kids were grown and working in careers.... made me realize my young family with 2 toddlers would be in really bad shape if I passed early.

The geography is much different than So Cal and as others have mentioned you really can't parse out areas by zip code like you can in LA.I think you need to work backward in your investment purchase and know that the rental sweet spot last year was $1500/mo and in the past 6 months has grown to $1700/mo.