I ultimately would like to have large buy and hold commercial portfolio, but I would like to generate cash to be able to pay down some debt and to be able to fund such deals in the near future.

Good morning @Ankith Chandra - In addition to being a licensed agent, my husband and I have a small rental portfolio of SFH.  

I am currently a second year full time MBA student interested in building a portfolio of single family and small multifamily units.  

I live in Orange and am also looking to purchase a property in the near future, with the hope of building a portfolio over time and generating passive income. 

I've been interviewing new CFPs and other investment advisers and they only want to create for me a portfolio of stocks, bonds, retirement cash, and bank accounts to produce a return of 6% or more. 

Check around with smaller banks and see if they can do portfolio loans.

For a third, I can't touch 1.2% rental yield in SoCal these days (maybe 2009, but not 2015), and would need to put something like 40% down (or LTV over my entire portfolio if HELOC used for cash purchase) to even cash flow (which is the price I would pay short term for that "insurance") or accept negative cash flow (definite no-go for me) for that 1 year + 1 day.

It is a necessary part of any balanced investment portfolio. 

Not only is RE local, your portfolio performance will vary with types of assets owned, quality of management, and your local market.

Find my other posts from my profile.Atlanta is awash in hard money lenders  and even portfolio lenders.