@Dustin AwtreyIt's hard to give a rule of thumb for rental real estate because ROI and effective tax rate are generally measured over a life cycle rather than each year like W-2 income.Unless you provide 'substantial services' with your rental (aka hotel-like services), the rental activity won't be subject to SE taxes, which is a strong positive...Some properties produce tax loss from year to year, some properties produce tax income.Some people are 'real estate professionals' who can use that tax loss to offset other sources of income, some aren't.Rule of thumb: no rule of thumb, work with your tax CPA/EA.

Our flip last year was FSBO & we were hounded by agents the majority of whom could produce a seller or a showing but spent a lot of time dropping by to sell us on their 'unique canned' 7% marketing skills? 

We look at whether we can add value and produce a return that suits our requirement.

I think that's overall healthy for the marketplace because it will allow all the PM companies to deliver better quality service to their clients and tenants, keep better care of the properties, etc - which improves the bottom line of the property owner.

Your 200K in dead equity invested in a income fund could easily produce a 10% annual return long term.

It does produce headaches but if you can handle it, they can be very profitable.

Yet the suburbs were healthy and booming.Detroit today is in much better shape. 

I will continue to take the meager match my employer gives (25% match of 6% of salarty), but I don't see the harm in cashing out the 22k from the old Roth 401k and then start over with my new employer and deploy that 22k into cash flow producing assets. 

When you are healthy in shape and your entire team is just fit, strong, athletic, you demand respect from everyone around you.

I was sought after in my area by many over the years due to being a top producer.