If a property is totaled, bank and home owner eat the loss. 

One of my tenants had a heart attack eating a hamburger just last Thanksgiving week.

Seems like the average all year is about 200 to 225 for 2 bed units and my mortgage on a $500k property would eat up almost half of my gross revenue. 

I wish I would have gotten in it in 2018/2019 when I had a nice, fat bank account... but alas, I did not :(So 2021 is here, and I used that nice, fat bank account to survive 2020.

It’s not surprising tho I mean have You ever asked your wife where she wants to eat for dinner as your headed to town ?

You will need a the hall from top of stairs, which will eat up a lot of space overall.

I would then build my portfolio while living there and eat the ~$10-12,000 in rent per year.Scenario 2: House-Hack and try to find a place on the North Side that is within budget.

That darn HOA fee eats up a lot of the cash flow and like you said they can always charge you more for it if they need to.

I spent my first year out of college at one of the big wirehouse brokers and my biggest takeaway was how unnecessarily inflated the cost is to most of the investors (and how much that eats away at their growth potential!).

I eat numbers like that for lunch" ....I'm ready!