If you have, say, $500,000 to play with, and you get a 10% return (much more passive than buying houses too) - you're almost where you need to be to retire!  

One of the tenants is disabled and the other is retired.

You can save yourself lots of headaches if you buy this with another kind of financing other than hard money.

Additionally, Lowe's allowed me to use their 10% moving coupon on the purchase and I saved another +$200.

Luckily, I had a good job through the recession and rented out a room to a friend, but I've often thought, if I had lost my job for some reason, I may have ended up losing the house because I had no equity and no real savings. 

I’ve saved about 50k and ready to invest into real estate.

I think the market is getting close to being at the top, could be another year or two but the savings bypassing capital gains I believe will supersede the appreciation gain.   

The area is not the worst or best, but someone could save money over the hotels in the area and have some privacy to boot. 

But they don't break the bank when compared to the taxes saved by being able to put exchange dollars to the improvements.

It might mean you lose the deal, but it might also save you if something terrible lurks.