This concept doesn’t necessarily mean invest only in real estate.The timing of your early years of retirement will define your later years of retirement, which may be dependent on the markets and overall economy.Whether or not the 4% rule will actually work is largely dependent on a concept called Sequence of Returns.

Are you comfortable with the concept of being in debt or not?

Two things I would share: 1) find a local REIA club by going to biggerpockets.com/meetup and start attending it to meet people, learn, etc. 2) Study the concept of House Hacking. imo this is the easiest way to begin.

I’m ok in concept with accepting discounted rent for 3 years to get a good deal on a house.

I understand that appreciation does not exist in this area  and have a rough concept of the clientele, but curious to your actual experience if you've owned here.  

You get to immediately expense the residual value of the improvement because it is gone.Depreciation is a TAX concept with no relationship to real world. 

Understanding this concept is critical in determining how your asset is priced, should you be the fortunate investor who is holding a property in a low cap rate market.

I've done a lot of research regarding the concept of investment properties, cash flow, depreciation, tax shelter, leveraging, etc.

The concept of putting more cash in will pay off a property faster, but without using actual numbers, you can make any scenario look like it works.When you put your scenario into the real world, the timeline, the dollars in, isn't going to payoff a property in 6/7 years.Now, the most important part of the answer.You're missing the power of what leveraging can do with your cash.1 -  The object of REI, which is something you don't find in other investments, it NOT to own it...it's to CONTROL it. 

I had 45 storage units with 7k sq ft of commercial above.. small business they had office and storage at one site.. that worked pretty well in a stacked concept.