I'm Thomas, a lurking/potential RE investor from the Denver area.

Taking care of the rentals is back to "RE 101" for me.I started my real estate career in 1976 in the Greater Los Angeles area. 

It’s nice and all, but in order to achieve the most in RE investing, I’d have to go into debt. should I avoid debt or should I dive in and allow my RE career to really takeoff?

It’s nice and all, but in order to achieve the most in RE investing, I’d have to go into debt. should I avoid debt or should I dive in and allow my RE career to really takeoff?

So my suggestion to you is find an area that you are interested in then dive in and do your home work, see what the community is like what future employment and current employment rate is, find out who is providing jobs and potential suppliers of jobs, research the RE market and neighborhoods, what is the inventory to DOM ratio, there is an # of market etc etc...

Short story: I'm 30 with a stable income in healthcare, my wife just got her RE license and is working for a great agency now (kids are 3 and 6 so she stayed at home during the young years).

"What if I can't meet the RE needs of the callers?" 

If it's just a place to live then it's a wrong place to ask.If you don't own any other RE and trying to built a portfolio then you can probably buy 2 or 3 properties with all that cash and have nice income come in.If you want to leverage it up you can buy a lot more units.So it all depends on your goals.

After 13 (very long) years, we're heading back to to re-connect with old friends/associates, expand community development initiates and invest in new alliances/partnerships. 

What are you paying to get them re-finished?