A couple of things to note:1.

If you are single or married with a small child, buying a duplex or 4plex should work well.  

I’ve also used a HELOC to buy a couple houses.

Have met him personally a couple times and he is just a great guy all around. 

I also hold a couple of real estate forums in the area for people like yourselves to connect with service providers, GC's, etc. 

Unfortunately that also lowers your return, so you might consider staggering the lower payments and rate (say 6%, then 7%, then back to 8%) over a couple of years. 

Being that rates are up it's another way to offer exatly what you mentioned; the chance to own for a couple hundred bucks more than renting.Thoughts?

Quote from @Akshay Bhaskaran: Me and my wife are Residential Real Estate Investors for the past couple years.

Send me a PM and I'll send you a couple of examples of what is on the market outside of Atlanta so you can run your numbers and see if that fits.

There are many more and many more personal goals such as getting married and starting a family, adopting my first GSP dog, traveling to Wyoming and Montana and spending more time in nature, just to share a few.