If you need current income, I'd recommend another fix/flip.

The majority have evictions on their record, don't make enough income or have a lot of debt under their name.Comparing other rentals on Zillow, my asking rent is $1100 while other properties are trying to rent at $1200.

Real estate is an excellent avenue to help you achieve those goals, especially since it can create both passive income and long-term wealth.

@Gregory SchwartzThere's nothing passive about passive real estate income.

We saw huge appreciation in the 2018-2022 inflation run up, but that has significantly slowed these days in my opinion.From a rental perspective your monthly income per unit after all expenses with a typical 20% down payment is likely $100-300 when you find a property that will cash flow.

This is how I see it:Single-Family Homes:Pros:Larger pool of potential tenants (families).Simpler management (one tenant, one lease).Often easier to finance.May appreciate faster in some markets.Cons:Only one income stream.Vacancy hits harder financially.Duplexes:Pros:Two potential income streams.Live in one unit and rent the other (house hacking!)

On average, you will spend 10% of your income on maintenance per year.

What I would tell you is that as we built our portfolio we continued working our full time corporate (cubicle) jobs until we had 20 units (self-managing them along the way).

The only two ways to rectify this are (1) purchase the property far below market price or (2) significantly increase the property net income usually through some method of “repositioning”. 

As already mentioned, you could sell via seller financing to lower AGI, as all you would have to claim is the payment income - until balloon payment received.Did know an investor that had 14 properties paid off and he moved into one every two years to then sell with the $250k single exemption.