Greed vs Fear, which one will control the markets?

Desperation or fear of losing 2-4 weeks of rent from a turnover is what ultimately drives people out of this business because they put up with the bad tenants.

There is no landlord tenant relationship established.Stop over thinking the issue, it is not a landlord problem, so no reason to give advice based on fear.

Ubit should not be feared. 

I guess my questions is why the fear?

Right now, an agent brings very little to the table for me.The internet has changed the fact I get information without using an agent.They will keep building platforms that will make buying with  an agent no longer necessary.Some will still have fear of using technology so there will be a small business for the great agent.

The 10 year treasury has reached highs not seen since 2014 recently.Also, there are a few sectors within REITS hurting for certain specific reasons, retail because of the 'Retail Apocalypse' non-sense and health care because of fears of government spending cuts.Personally, I'm using the weakness to buy REITS because they historically perform well during periods of higher interest rates due to the rent growth it allows. 

As a newbie I have this fear that I would be flushing $1,000+ down the drain.

IE once you go down the road of buying rentals and if you ever want to ACTUALLY exit without giving the portfolio to your kids or charity you have recapture.. so you can end up getting on the Hamster wheel. you end up having to stay in the asset class for fear of a huge tax payment.Now that all said diversification is something to look at maybe you spread your funds around to a few different investments don't put them all in one spot. 

I wouldn't rush to pay off anything under 4%, as this is almost free money.if you have high monthly loan payments, relative to your monthly salary you may have trouble finding financing. if your loan payments are lower it may have no effect.remember, this is all a  numbers game. if someone says you always have to pay loans off, that is because they are risk averse and let fear talk. rational investors make decisions based on numbers and facts, not fear and emotion.