Your actual return is reduced by the amount of the principle paymentsThe risk in a deal like this is that your tenant goes belly up.

If you purchase a multi unit property you can live in one unit and rent out the others which can reduce or in some cases even eliminate your housing expense. 

Regardless, there were far too many earthquakes happening in Oklahoma, and the high volumes of water being injected into the Arbuckle formation were reduced.

It will be rare to find one who understands Real Estate to the extent as many of the contributors here on BP.If you do meet with one, speak to a fee based advisor vs. commission based to reduce the risk of conflict of interest.Chances are you will be given a recommendation for insurance, mutual funds or some kind of managed money product in stocks & bonds in an allocated portfolio for retirement, education accounts if you have kids, etc.Remember that a Financial Advisor's isn't there to help you become wealthy.

In tertiary markets nearby with larger tracts this cost could easily be reduced to south of $75psf.

When you can't rent them, you don't cash flow as well/at all, which means things don't get fixed, which leads to reduced property value and you lowering rents, which leads to things not getting fixed..... etc.I think you need to strike a balance: on one side, you can buy great homes in great locations that attract great tenants which saves you time and headaches, but the numbers won't be as good.

Broadly speaking marketing can be broken into several steps and some of them are one-time investments that can be batched and systems can be built to reduce the cost.  

Holding past 1 year 1 day would reduce the tax to 20% for our tax bracket.

Only got 1 of 8 properties reduced.

I'd recommend to always keep in mind 'Reduce, then Produce'.