joel, he said it's just the opposite:he used to do residential and about 10 yrs ago he switched over to commercial. he said he does about 4-5 deals per year. but he is active all day, every day. i dont know how he can survive on 4-5 deals per year. maybe they are enormous deals.when i asked him to give me an insurance guy, he said "oh, i dont want to get into that in case anything happens with policies and coverages. i stay away from that stuff". that was weird since he thinks that the blame would be on him should anything happen to a property.anyway, i am still looking. i found an attractive duplex that came up yesterday for 86k. 2 streets over, there are 2 other duplexes that are asking 126k. but i am using a different agent this time. will see what happens.

Leases survive sales, so if there's a tenant in place and the property is sold, they get to stay for at least the remainder of their lease.

The model is pretty dated but there are some investors who still do well with.

I don't know what rank you are but I can tell you that if I had been carrying two mortgages as a Petty Officer I would not have been able to survive very long.

Like you I'm new at this and in "sponge mode" as you called it.  

Asset Management Phase: Once you are not accumulating at a high pace then the properties go into management mode.3.

I have more real world experience under my belt than most of the "pro" members on this site (flipping anyway) but have failed to launch over the hump into doing more than surviving.  

I think the current cash on cash model is 7-8% net positive cash flow without factoring profit from future sale.I think with a SDRA you cannot take depreciation on the property as it sort of becomes meaningless given nothing is being taxed until withdrawals after retirement.  

I was in expansion mode and considering a lease with purchase option for my 4th property but now I have other priorities. 

And that seems to be a bit of a riskier model. I