It is absolutely true that real income earned by the lower class  has remained stagnant or slightly decreased for decades while the real income of the wealthy has increased significantly.

The rent you charge does not go down even if the home value decreases.

How do you feel about president trump requiring FHA to decrease insurance premiums ?

Right now, Because this is my first major purchase, I'm just not willing to take a 'paid' risk for someone to tell me something and decrease my chances of getting qualified when my questions could have been answered, I could have worked to improve what I needed to based on your advice provide, saved time from making a stupid financial mistake, not wasting any realtor time to get approved and came back prepared in a better situation for both parties without being paid.

You can negotiate a certain rate that will decrease as you acquire more units and give it to them to manage.

The whole point of paying them off as much as possible as soon as possible is 1) help eliminate liability risk in the event the market changes, rent rolls decrease, W2 income disappears etc and 2) Be in a position where I can fully leverage them again in 4 - 7 years when I am ready to acquire another 4 - 10 duplexes, small apartment building etc and ditch the W2 for good.For those that deal with rentals and used them as a way to ditch your 9-5, how did you do it?  

Thats True Jon that buying right "helps," your DTI however I've seen many times where it was the right buy in investor theory however the investors accountant goes to town when filing the returns so the cash flow looks lack luster at best.So by buying right the investor will actually decrease their DTI ratios (qualify for more) but inadvertently I've seen investors stab themselves in the foot because they do not understand how the cash flow statement is determined from the accounting end so they end up frustrated.

When interest rates increase, home prices will decrease.

There's more upside if you can increase rents further and decrease expenses, but this is my directional sense of the deal.Unit 1: 1800Unit 2: 1050Unit 3: 900Unit 4: Owner (900 after move out)Gross Rent: 45,000 (55,800)Net Rent: 40,500 (50,220)Expenses (rounded up): 18,000NOI: 22,500 (32,220)Debt Service: 22,900Cash Flow: -400 (9,320)The key to seeing solid returns on these small multis in this area is minimizing turnover costs and vacancies. 

And then decrease again as our purchases move back to replacement cost (in say 3-5 Years)