We invest all of my income into buying houses, while we live on just my husbands salary.Our model is buy and hold real estate through pure rentals, personals turned rentals all being class A properties so smaller margin but lower expenses.

Now that other investor had driven by that same property at least a dozen times before I was in the car with him/her, but they were not in the driving for dollars mode.

So I am in the BUY mode.

Which, if you do, then you're right, investing based on ROI is all that matters.But with my model, I don't have the kind of capital to sink 20 to 30k in a down payment and pay the rehab costs (another 15 to 20k?). 

I haven't started working as an agent long enough to transition into an agent's mode rather than an investor mode.

And my MODE sales price (most often) was probably in the 300k-500k range.

Basically, there business model is a joke.

There are very few who survived 07 to 09..

And, "Powers of attorney do not survive death.

Two big assumptions here:1- "so long as the rents hold up"2- possibly reduce other costs in a downturnNot saying these are bad assumptions, but they are the difference between surviving a downturn and foreclosure.