I would much rather own 25 class A properties than 150 class C/D properties. 

In today's REI strategy there may be slight changes but as you know from your decades of experience, the game doesn't change much, it just has different players.

Find someone with a bank CD making 1% and offer them a secured 1st Deed of Trust on your place.One thing I absolute do NOT recommend this first time around: do NOT "pull out extra money." 

Hi all,I’m just getting started in this and don’t have enough cash on hand for a full deal yet, but am saving as much as possible.That said, savings accounts are paying essentially nothing, CD’s aren’t much better.Started dropping cash into an M1 account that I have set up with a big mix of mostly dividend stocks... by my estimates, it should pay about 3% just in dividend returns... certainly not enough to compete with real estate, but it seems to be a good option in the meantime.

IE takes little to no money.. which I am sure you know is simply not true it takes some money and to be a big time player it takes a LOT of money. 

Good thing I have a pipeline of equity and syndication deals for the new players coming to our market.

Finally, know your market and all the investor players in it.  

Preferably the one he already has an account at.Ask them if he moves the $50,000 into a cd or money market that they can control, can they loan him the entire amount.  

As for you, investing as a house hacker in an area you are very familiar will be a competitive advantage you can tap into that the big players can’t.

Best wishes on your investing career and please ignore the people with PhD's (player hating degrees) !