Unemployment is certainly a risk, the exposure of residential real estate to commercial real estate decline due to the large number of AirBNBs is a risk.

Irregardless, I definitely agree with you, and with many of the other folks that've posted, that the time is now - better to gain the experience and exposure to the market rather than delay.

I would assume due to, or lack of early regular positive exposure.

However, unless you are using REITs, which are positively correlated, there probably isn’t the data to calculate an accurate exposure to real estate as part of an optimized portfolio mix.

If there is no window, then a bath fan must be installed and properly vented.I am not familiar with your square footage, or local codes,  but looking at your numbers compared to my exposure, you under budgeted.

That book was the book that gave me the courage to go out and buy my first two rental properties despite having no prior exposure  to (and actual a strong aversion to) real estate.  

Not everyone qualifies for this as they have to be a qualified investor, but this literally saved a client of mine about $400k in capital gains tax exposure.

You can always buy reits in your 401k to have exposure to real estate that way.

With that exposure early on, right out of college I did a handful of wholesale or lease option deals after maybe 2-3 months of serious effort.

Some of these benefits include simpler accounting, limited exposure to the rest of the portfolio, better insurance rates, etc.