My job consumes a lot of my time and if I look up the ladder I can tell it's only going to get worse if I continue to advance in my career. 

she dug Your Money or Your Life, and is currently reading 4 hour work week. she's really digging it, and we're already starting to make lifestyle plans for our future. the problem for real estate investing, is that we did the dave ramsey class together, and she's huge on not being in debt. she's struggled to get out of it in the past, and has only her student loans left. assuming the world doesn't end, haha, she'll be out of debt in about 12-16 months, and still in her early 20s. when i try to explain the difference between "good" debt that creates more income than it costs, and "bad" debt that doesn't create income, or appreciation. consumer debt vs business debt. that kind of thing... it doesn't really click tho, and she's still hesitant. she's a w2 earner (i'm a 1099) with decent income, so she could easily land an FHA loan and lock in a house hack within the next year, allowing her to save/invest tons of money and kick the whole thing off even faster. i would love to present this to her in a way that doesn't seem forced, or "i'm right you're wrong do it my way". i want her to really get it on her own, to understand the power that real estate has to change your life. anyone else dealt with this before? 

If you are able to bill back utilities to tenants based on their actual usage, then it stand to reason that the tenants will consume less gas, water, etc... than if the LL is footing the bill.

It just worries me that our consumer spending habits as a nation are so out of hand at times that no matter how much you give people it will be gone in no time.Would you guys say the past plan of action would be to sit in the front of the roller coaster keep up on what is going and stake as much cash as possible for the time being?

I am 32 years old with excellent credit and less than 10k in consumer debts (truck note). 

There may just be fewer of them and they're looking for bigger discounts due to the uncertainty in the market.

Maneuvering through tightened guidelines has not been the easiest thing, for consumer and lender/broker, whether it's conforming or whether it's bridge money.Are you purchasing strictly investment on that 3 unit? 

Probably 4 SFHs with the same capital used would yield higher return BUT SFH proving very time consuming to find.

Or even work as property manager altho could be time consuming. 

I believe mobile homes are regulated as consumer goods and not real property.