You are currently getting a 2.5% yield (which I think is low for a dividend portfolio, I target 3.5% on my dividend portfolio).......but you can get a free cash flow yield on real estate often in excess of 10%. $500 a door may sound small to you....but at 4 properties throwing off $500 a door....you have created more passive income from real estate than you have from your stock portfolio. ($24,000 vs $20,000)

I have lost friends that i consider family and have also seen what happens to the families when they lose the heads of the households when they did not have anything left for them.

Option 1: pay off 20k remod and wait to build up more cash to buy additional SFR but could lose out.

But I also cant afford to lose money.

I guess me and my partner was frustrated that every year we would be losing money on the 2 properties , so we just sold it fast and at a lost.  

Regardless of which State you are closing in, some title companies will and some will not.You lose nothing by asking, but if you don't even ask - - you're guaranteed nothing will happen.

There are people, this very moment, that are losing money from real estate month after month. 

I was working with a couple investors, who bought cheap properties that wouldn't pay my ledger balance, let alone my bills, and struggling to list homes after losing the builder I worked with at the beginning of the bubble burst.

Only a total catastrophe should lose you money.

And if we do will we lose the money we put up already?