This is good economics and will create dividends and net worth for you.

Certain tasks need to be performed especially in your due diligence and acquisitions.Learning the basics of real estate should open your eyes to  the socio-economic factors of real estate, especially residential, understanding you market, location, zoning, adding value which all ties into marketing to meet socio-economic demands.Most assume someone will want the house, that can bankrupt you.

The economics are fundamentally different now than they were over the previous 5 years.  

Nothing like local investors and your own interpretation of economics to keep a pulse on the market !

I mean, beyond some economics (but I grew up with an economist).  

These people tend to have more discretionary income and assets saved up in an economic downturn.

psychology and economics.  

I am 21 graduating from college this May from Liberty University with an economics degree, I will return home to Dallas, Texas to begin my masters degree at UT Arlington in City and Urban Planning.

As for some of the other commenters here, the idea is this:Buy a small multifamily in year 1Buy a larger multifamily in year 2Buy a great, large, nice multifamily in year 3Buy a small commercial property in year 4Buy a larger commercial property in year 5This is to be done with conventional financing, using cash flows from previous investments, and is in contrast to the widely popular strategy of accumulating SFRs in the manner described below:Buy 1 SFR in year 1Buy 2 SFRs in year 2Buy 3 SFRs in year 3Buy 4 SFRs in year 4Buy 5 SFRs in year 5I know that real estate doesn't work out exactly like this, but please understand the argument that I'm trying to grasp are the economic advantages of purchasing a large number of SFRs, vs buying just 1 property or so per year, but buying larger and larger each time, snowballing NOT into a vast number of houses, but instead into an equivalently large dollar volume of real estate assets, but with fewer properties that offer economies of scale.

There has been some recent, positive economic investment in the greater Cincinnati area, as well as a fair amount of companies expanding their operations/facilities and bringing more jobs.