You can earn decent referral income too which can be a good source of additional income - i get a decent portion of leasing income just from people referring friends to me that they want to lease a space in a retail center (I do commercial leasing too).  

I've gone as far as finding a company that'll find and assess the homes and literally show me what the potential earnings are after flipping and I can't even do that.

I think this is mostly a function of stock valuations peaking.

Are you planning on paying self employment tax on your earnings, or treating them as capital gain? 

Each SFR is worth about $500k and earns $1000/month after PITI (got to love student rentals).

If you put tax free pay into your Roth IRA or Roth TSP, that pay AND its earnings will NEVER be taxed, which is awesome. 

Very few areas around here do prices exceed peak prices of 2008.Of course there are strong markets like yours all over the country, HOWEVER, the national figures are still down. 

A native of Asheville, Rusty earned his BS in Business Administration from Newberry College in South Carolina.

A native of Asheville, Rusty earned his BS in Business Administration from Newberry College in South Carolina.

Essentially, you want to pay less then $180,000 for a property that will earn more then $1,900 a month, and will cost you less then the current expense levels.