We'd even be happy to move them into one of our (future) properties and just let them keep all/most of their rent income as free cashflow. 

In the meantime learn and figure out how to increase income/savings.

You can manage expenses, track income, collect rent, and even create virtual accounts for each property – all for free.

The tax savings could be larger than the regular income. 

-------------------------------------------------------------------Recommend you first figure out the property Class you want to invest in, THEN figure out the corresponding location to invest in.Property Class will typically dictate the Class of tenant you get, which greatly IMPACTS rental income stability and property maintenance/damage by tenants.If you apply Class A assumptions to a Class B or C purchase, your expectations won’t be met and it may be a financial disaster.If you buy/renovate a property in Class D area to Class A standards, what quality of tenant will you get?

Your income needs to be 100x it and you need to invest 10% of your net(so less than $5mil) annually in structured product type investing incl RE, let it season for 3-5 years, re-invest the first bit of profits and by year 8-10 you should be comfortable.$500k annual income is alot for your average folk, but it's not "retire me" income at all.

One of my applicants showed up with little credit but no defaults, no evictions, and only traffic violations and verified income high enough to cover well over 3 times the rent and I accepted the tenant despite there being some signs.He paid the rent in time for the most part until a few weeks ago when he stopped and I could not get ahold of him.

What's your income and how much money do you have in the bank would be the first thing I would consider.

A debt service loan would be a good option if your DTI is high, you want to close in an LLC, you're self-employed or have low income on paper, or you don't have a stable 2-year work history.

Go straight into focusing on creative finance, subject to, and minimal cash down deals and build from there.I want to hear your thoughts on what direction to take here if you were in my shoes given these constraints (full time job and a few thousand saved) and you want to optimize for passive income first, then value appreciation?