I would rather keep my cash any day than put it to work on a mediocre property and area and hope for the best strategy.If you are worth millions and want to take  a small percentage of your money and take a roll of the dice on something that is different than saving up a long time to get started and buy a mediocre property and it becomes nothing but headaches and saddles an investor with bad debt so when a good deal actually comes along they are stuck.

That said, I figured that I might get some good feedback from all of you to save me some trouble or at least help me narrow down the field!

Have any of you considered or do any of you put that money into a CD equal to the length of the lease so you can gain a significantly greater amount of interest on that money you will hold onto for the foreseeable future rather than letting it sit in a low yield savings account.

I have a decent paying job(state worker) for a 23 year old, and my savings for my down payment is increasing rapidly while my DTI is decreasing. 

I can bore you to tears as to why, but I will save the rest of the community from my spiel.

@Robert Zuccaro make sure you include the unit you will be living in when you calculate your return. this is because you will move out some point and you are saving on rent by living in one unit.

You will probably have to replace it after a few years worth of tenants, so save money now if you can. 

. - don't confuse it with tax saving - the CSS allows you to accelerate depreciation (you get more of it sooner, and less of it later) so you have to factor that in in your tax strategy- it's good to have CSS done when you replace an item (you'll be able to claim loss deductions)- there is also an inheritance benefit - your heirs will benefit from a CSS in place.Maybe @Wes Mabry can offer more advice.

I know a lot of investors don't like paying the fees, but on those early purchases, our agent saved us so much time and money and was an invaluable part of getting us off the ground.

We opted to save some money and do it ourselves.