The duplex in Seattle thing, go for it.... but at some point, don't you need some cashflow for the $$ you're investing in these expensive markets.... unless you're already wealthy... but if that's the case, why are you investing?

So focusing on cashflow, IF IT IS GENUINE AND SUSTAINABLE, makes it almost impossible to go broke.However it is also almost impossible to get wealthy on it either so that's the problem. 

I've spent my entire working life, investing hours of my time making other people wealthy.

Teach others and pay it forwardTo paraphrase Rich Dad Poor Dad, "Wealth is the number of days you can survive forward if you lost your job today."

Which are certainly going to exceed $1,000.The only other way is to find wealthy individuals with no idea of what a good return is and ask them for a x% loan on 100% of the money with no payments and the hope you will sell it for a profit at the end.

If only someone could find a way to build housing that the majority of the market is demanding (currently being supplied by older C and B class assets) they would solve a major economic/society issue and become enormously wealthy. 

When I partner with wealthy individuals I get bank financing. 

I also had heard larger investors criticize common techniques used by mom and pop investors such as investing locally and self managing.In the end I found out that mom and pop investors and the techniques they use are not bad and they enabled me to invest and make money even though I didn’t start off wealthy.

This approach tends to appeal to computer programmers, a new segment of the freshly affluent in our society who have made plenty of money out of math and are already half-deluded by their success in computers into believing that equations applied to concrete, earth, wood, steel, human failings, weather, and the inexorable passage of time will yield a golden system that anyone can use to become fabulously wealthy out of land and the structures built on it.Regard the mathletes and their beliefs with a healthy dose of skepticism, drill down past all the fascination to what these numbers are supposed to offer you in the way of insight, and you'll be fine.

Wealth is not measured “just” in $, is it worth that $ to give up that time.