If you aren't diving into real estate investing full time, it is also a good way to ease in, work with other investor and gain experience through them. the down side is: it's sales and commission work, no effort = no $$$. it's a lot of busy work (I work with foreclosure and short sales, and investors). it will distract from your own investing objective.

In my opinion the biggest factors would be the plan being built (2 or 3 br?)

Your question seems to be a reoccurring one -- turnkey versus do-it-yourself.Some of the biggest benefits to truly passive turnkey investment properties are "done for you" investments with immediate cash-flow and low risk.

My biggest challenge with this plan is buying properties at 20% discount, but that's probably the most important part!

Alternatively, I might think about selling it and exchange into two lower price THs, although I think your friend might have a hard time finding THs below $400K in that area these days.Anyways, if there isn't a better plan and the downside of holding isn't too great, it may be worth the little bit of speculation.

However, if the plan were to work out how we were hoping it would, the upside would be far greater than the downside ever will be.2) My wife and I have always lived on the lower income and saved the higher one, so leaving my job wasn't going to affect our daily lifestyle in anyway, which was very important for me.

The biggest issue we get is noise.

The one downside is that the funds are on hold for 5 business days - i was hoping that the 2nd time around, the hold time would be reduced but alas not so.

For example people will tell you about price reductions before they hit the market, they might tell you who's motivated to sell etc.So anyway, those are the biggest benefits to being investor/agent as opposed to one or the other.

If you haven't, you need to look at other rentals in the same area and be sure you're finishing yours right.The biggest factor in getting a good tenant is to price it right.