In my investing group, when studying the differences between "average consumers" and "successful people", we talk about these four "currencies":MoneyTimeKnowledge RelationshipsConsumers view money as the goal.

Russell GoodingLease Options can be viable if structured properly, or they can be a big invitation for CRA to fill your dance card.I would suggest you search 'Lease Option' here on BP and pay particular attention to the ramblings ... err ... eloquent teachings of @Bill Gulley on the subject.For a Canadian treatment of the subject have a look at either:"Legal, Tax & Accounting Strategies For the Canadian Real Estate Investor" by Steve Cohen & George Dube or "Commercial Real Estate Investing In Canada" by Pierre & Claude BoironThere is also a fairly lengthy CRA bulletin on the subject ... drop me a PM if you are interested and I'll dig it out.

Double digit Cap rate market in most urban city is simply not available/not possible.

But then everyone would be zillionaires, and our dollar would worth as much as the Zimbabwe's currency. 

Paying off some of our debts and then reducing the amount of currency in circulation should bring the value of the dollar back up to a level where it is again a strong & meaningful world currency.

You don't need the SSN, just the LAST 4 Digits of their social. make sure you indicate that on your form.

Money market accounts don't even keep up with savings right now.Small hard-money loans (1st, 2nds), mobile home, business investments would be what I would look at.Anything where you can invest time + money and achieve a high double or triple digit return yearly (on smaller amounts) is where I would start.If you want to run your rental business on the financial redline and be 2 months of vacancies away from bankruptcy, by all means go for it.

That said here's a quick response for the time being.There was a huge improvement over last year until August of this year. 25% vacancy that month in a portfolio that numbers in the double digits of units - so that is a red flag (plus one more the next month).

However, the reserves do not necessarily have to all be in cash - short term debt instruments or my favorite, a diversified Currency fund to reduce exposure to the dollar.

Just take pictures of everything with digital camera for crying out loud.