WE live and work in the area now after my husband retired from Blizzard Entertainment in CA after 15 years.I also have rentals in Huntsville AL and LOVE LOVE the area.

That's correct Curtis.We have in house property management and Realty.Hired a "retired" broker also so our agents can work through now an in house brokerage also :)The contract saga of all this is finally coming to an end lolLots of jibba jabba legalitiesI bet our attorneys love us right now haha $$$Thanks

Unfortunately the world of self directed retirement accounts is not what you would call well known (2-3% of all retirement funds) so the sample size is going to be fairly small.

Firstly I think of RE as an alternative investment and would never consider putting more than a small portion of my total portfolio into it, secondly it would primarily be as an inflation hedge or for the income, granted I wouldn't be interested in income investing until I was closer to retirement.

This was not a good deal given the quality of the 'contractor' that I hired, but it was a valuable learning lesson.My retired father-in-law wanted to a lot of the work on this one, and while it was great working with him no the project, I ended up spending much more time working on the property than I wanted really wanted to because I felt like I needed to be there if he was.  

That means your (historically low interest) mortgage costs will carry on, but should be MORE than offset by the cash flow/appreciation of your other investments - all dovetailing nicely for retirement!

If you find a seller that owns the property free and clear(Or the majority of it) or is nearing retirement, you can ask them to seller finance.

I am looking purely for retirement income, so I don't ever see a need to sell.

Selling because wife retired 1.5 years ago, husband is going to retire in the summer.

After investing in retirement, brokerage, and savings accounts, I am left with about 20K each year.