There is money in buying raw land and getting it permitted for build with plans and flipping it shovel ready 

Some other secrets are programs investors can use to save money on downpayments or to buy more properties without having to use income like Non/QM (DSCR or Bank statement programs). 

In other words, how would I calculate the return (from a purely financial standpoint) of "investing" in a primary residence vs renting and putting the money elsewhere (perhaps even into an investment property, but also considering buying a business)? 

Just another example of private equity throwing money at bad business model's in our space.  

Private Money Lenders (Kiavi, LendingOne, Private Individuals) Fix and Flip productsWho did you get the loans through?

Putting 20% down really puts a dent on our liquid money but better (we think) than it just losing value in the bank. 

The idea that you can build wealth without putting any money into it is a recipe for disaster and the sales pitch of gurus trying to steal your money.

Definitely that was money making time in terms of operations and appreciation as well.Things have changed now, there is so many STRs now that people are renting for 100-150 USD a night which is like a motel price.Now it may make sense from the perspective of, if Poconos is where you travel a lot with family or you are buying full cash to park the money, or tax strategy or various other personal reasons could be there where it might make sense to invest there.But coming in from the perspective of an investor who are new or have little experience and are trying to build wealth from not too heavy asset portfolio.

My current primary ( scenario 1) Keep the primary for the life of the loan ( current rate is 4.5 so i dont see my self refinancing anytime soon)current home value 1,150,000Loan amount 935,000appreciation estimate 5% per year after a 28 year hold and the house is paid off I would have a house worth 4,312,000$my current mortgage is 6125$ ( piti) included My second option( scenario 2) Sell the house, walk away with $150 ,000 ish in hand and put that into a low cost index fund Rent a house elsewhere for about 3000$ ish and take the extra 3000$ im saving everymonths from not having to pay my mortgage and puting that money in the index fund as well I ran the numbers on both of these scenarios and doing what I mentioned above would break even at about 28 years meaning my stock account would be worth 4.3 million just like my house would , but the only is that holding a house for 28 year would mean 28 years of property taxes, loan interest ,home insurance and repairs etc whick I calculated to be about 1,200,000$ at minimum which raised my eyebrows to say the least Also i understand that each of these options ( stock market vs real estate ) will have there tax consequences ( long term capital gains) so any thoughts on that would be appreciated as well.  

Generally spend about 2 hours getting all the data in to the sheet.