It means 48% of your income is being used up servicing debt (mortgages, student loans, car loans, credit cards, HELOC, child support, etc) Each lender has their own set of rules if the loan is going to stay "in house".

From conversations as well as looking at the current listings for rentals in the area, it seems that you can get just shy of $500 per room (when renting to students) so the total would be ~$2400 per month if all 5 bedrooms were rented (given that I take one of the bedrooms).

I've collected on a few bad damage cases for SMU students...Are you doing furnished units?

In the next years I´d like to gain experience / network in the profession working in a company without risking my own money.

I often tell people who want to turn this into a business to try and talk to many of the local providers (banks, property managers, contractors, etc) for their specific profession to try and find if there is someone you would want to continue working with in the future.

My time is dedicated to my clients, students, and family.  

You could look into finding properties with large bedrooms and try renting out the rooms to college students if you find that you cannot afford a multi in the area also.

We both have fairly extensive student loan debts with a total of around $220,000.

I'm a sophomore college student majoring in Real Estate & Finance at Indiana Univesity.

But just not sure who to pick... that last couple look working class and have two older kids and she has bad credit because she said she has student loans ( which does not explain why the credit is bad to me ) and the hubby has no credit at all...