Looks like we have different understandings of portfolio construction and weight the importance of taxes much differently, which is fine. 

You have a friend who wants to be a body builder but year after year he/she uses the same dumbbell weights, choosing to never increase them because they are ...

However, the posts that have been most encouraging in regards to conveying the weight and risk of REI have been the "here's all of my mistakes" posts.

That 1 item alone makes a realtor worth their weight in gold. 

Congrats on your sale, we just got out of an investment gone bad and can tell you a weight has been lifted.

It holds so much more weight than emailing, contacting through social media or getting on a website like this.

If you can snag a property with separate metering, then you're essentially buying a duplex with free standing units (with residential low down financing), and that's worth its weight in gold. 

A good contractor is worth their weight in gold, and they're very hard to find.

I know appreciation is important but I'm heavily weighted towards cash on cash returns and evidently it's just not that strong in Phoenix or in the surrounding area.

The creator started NS while getting his PhD, I would definitely put some weight behind the data.