Yes, it's a nice bonus, but it's not as good as it looks.

Due to the company I work for being sold we will be getting a fairly nice retention bonus, I'm thinking of using this as seed money to start investing in real estate.

We were initially paying him $4k a month with the plan of giving a bonus at the end to compensate the extra work he did.

Bonus points if that agent is 100% investor focused and/or is an active investor themselves.

First, that article is for first time home buyers thinking you would get big tax deductions, that is not the main reason you buy Investment properties, that's just an added bonus to help relieve the tax payment on income you make from the property. and as the Article states, that will change when the rates go up, the more interest you pay on the loan the more you can deduct.say you are in 25% tax bracket and your rate is 3.5% and your interest is $300, you basically deduct 25% of that on taxes ( works out lower but for this we are doing straight numbers ) now if the interest rate goes up to say 5% you may now pay $400 in interest, 25% of that is more than 25% of the $300, so you can deduct more, its all relative. and that's what that article talks about, not that anything has been taken away.

As an added bonus, we also happen to live in just such a highly profitable market so we have home court advantage to boot.

I appreciate all of your responses and if you have reasoning for why you like/dislike the areas that would be an added bonus!

I would also get them to have renters insurance to protect your self against bonus liability claims, such as I was burglarized because of your poor security.

And there's actually a bonus in starting an exchange round about this time of year. 

And as a bonus I have had time to learn more.