It depends on your day job (if you have/need one), your fixed overhead, your risk tolerance, your family's risk tolerance, your age, your reserves, and other factors.

Take a rental that is the cheapest you can tolerate living in, to conserve your money.Contact a real estate agent and ask them to take you around and show you what is available in your price range.You never know, you might find something that you like better at a decent price.

We have steady income in our day jobs and have savings in equity markets so we could tolerate a little bit of risk with loans, I thought.David: thank you so much for a crispy clear list of options and their corresponding yields!

If I thought I was going to be able to invest that much every year, then it's more tolerable.

We had to replace all the carpet in the apartment.And some how I'm the jerk because I asked her to leave after tolerating her late rent payments for months?

Zero tolerance is the best policy. 

My wife (now married 38 years) is very patient and inconvenience tolerant but would "lose it" on occasion.

What most of you don't see is how many people screw this up, who get into issues all the time because they don't have solid contracts or agreements in place, who don't have an operating agreement when they needed it most.It has everything to do with your tolerance for risk, the game you are playing and what price you are willing to pay when things go south.

I tolerate Oregon.

You could indicate that they could pay it over the next 3 to 6 months (depending on the cost).Make it clear that any additional vandalism of the property will not be tolerated.