It's hard to harvest equity on these plays, unless you commit, long-term, towards very light leverage, as the only practical ways to benefit from the equity in your portfolio, if you plan to never sell it, only exchange it, for a lifetime, are to spend the cash flow, or cash out refi.

I give it ten or so years before we start seeing this play out. 

unfortunately this marketing specialist was NOT a specialist in marketing for real estate businesses, did not understand the unique requirements and characteristics of real estate, and hence implemented their “generic” on line marketing program.  

They are too close for comfortable game play.

Most are folks that have the emotional control of a 5 year old, controlling attitude, an omniscient narrative in every thread & topic, act like an online hall monitor, and constant attention seeking. 

Here is my system that I have shared on the forums previously:It all starts with online ads, within which are several pre-screening questions I request be answered in their response to my ad.

The FF rates in my zipcode are higher than I expected and their quality is less than what I'm bringing online! 

Play with your numbers and see what a deal that works for you looks like. 

An instructor can make it better, but most are online now anyway.

The property cash flows and I could definitely see each investor making at least $1000/mo with the most hands-off approach of renting to an operator and much more if a person ran it as STR or LTR and it is a great diversification play for me as Costa Rica should see much better appreciation than the Midwest, but if I were to cash out I could see five times the cash flow because of the power of leverage.But I think you hit the nail on the head in saying that it is a lifestyle type of investment.