@Stone Jin, Unfortunately, house hack would be challenging as my wife and I bought last year with the intention of starting our family soon. 

@Greg Scott, I think MA is vying to beat CA in many circumstances. 

Unfortunately so many of them are on roads like Sullivant, Broad, Cleveland, etc.. areas where its not awful to have something on a sidestreet but the main road gets a lot of drama, so worry about tenant quality.

I have dealt with similar circumstances and that is how proceeded. 

So unfortunately, the only way to use these assets to purchase real estate would be to pull the money out of the IRA incurring the 10% penalty plus paying the taxes on the growth in the account.

Interesting thought @Eli Schwartz -- unfortunately I don't have that exact data for this project, but I will try to track it down! 

Hello all,We have a rental property in So Cal, that had an unfortunate fire incident last August.

A realtor from the area told us that since the area was a retirement community 15 years ago before hurricane Katrina came through that unfortunately I should expect the worst in the situation due to death, land being in trusts, or successions.

However, circumstances dictated that I needed to move it quickly.

Unfortunately, the one I had previously was only interested in closing the deal.