While many in the military community will talk about buying a house at every duty station and then retiring on the rental income after a full career, that takes a long point of view and a willingness to let the property sit with little impact to your bottom line for many years.

Third like I said I am a little older now I'll be 37 in May and would like to know that I have a plan for when I am ready to retire.

I'm a "Marine brat" from years ago...both my Dad (served almost 30 years), My Mom (served a couple until having babies), and my oldest brother (served his 4 then became a police officer until retiring with the force).

. , go talk to a local bank that does portfolio lending (i.e will not sell mortgage your mortgage to Fannie/Freddie) and speak to someone in their residential dept.You may need someone in the commercial dept who can do acommercial line of credit across the other properties.If that fails, seek a private lender.There are also some brokerages (e.g Merrill Lynch) who will give you a loan against your non-retirement stock portfolio.

airdna.co is one, I've ran analysis on my own area though and the numbers weren't very accurate, lets just say I would be retired If I was actually earning what they say people do in my area.

I found a 36 unit apartment complex near me that was up for sale a few years ago because owners wanted to retire.

Rinse & repeat until retirement.

The ultimate goal is to retire early with enough passive income.  

Since I don't have enough cash in hands I decided to use money from my 403(b) retirement fund.

I just retired from the Army and lived 10 of my 20 years overseas.