Active apartment investing will require 15-20 hours a week of your time and you might as well devote that to your wife right now.

I have some time in the evenings and weekends to devote as well as ~3% of income to use for educational purposes.

As others have said in well-written responses above, whether to be active or passive largely comes down to you, including your temperament, your willingness to invest the necessary time to be an active owner, and the opportunity cost from devoting time to RE management over other competing activities.  

I have about 50K of equity in the older residence, can afford both mortgage payments for the foreseeable future, and my current career allows me the freedom to devote some time to REI.

There is not a one size fits all that I know about, and it's a shame when people spend more time trying to find the 'what ifs' and 'yeah but's' in theories that have made other people succeed, rather than devote their energy to succeeding in their own life.

There is not any one size fits all that I know about, but it's a shame when people spend more time trying to find the 'what ifs' and 'yeah but's' in theories that have made other people succeed, rather than devote their energy to succeeding in their own life.p.s.

Also includes a pandering, and weak Federal Legislature and Judicial Branch whose inaction in checking and balancing the Executive Branch serves to enable horrible policy choices for the country and economy.4 Fluffs = Main stream media outlets devoted to the State and focused on many different distractions to sidetrack the general population from the actual issues, such as "Where's all the money coming from?"

I have a full time job, but she only works part time and devotes much of her time and energy to prop mgmt.

There are whole forums devoted to just this subject, but the short answer is that they are omnipotent, all-knowing, and their rulings are final.

I guess the ol' eye will just have to get used to something new...I do appreciate all of the devotion you put into this site, so I hate to critique, it seems so shallow and unappreciative.