And it works.It seems to me that there can be some pretty good ROI's with cheap, but convenient, farmland, with a farm-to-table direct-retail component (ideally, an on-farm stand, which is why location is so critical), and hard working sharecroppers who just need a chance to build up their nest egg.

We have always had a maintenance director, we knew we needed to spend the money to scale and grow the business, we saw that in order for us to give not only our investors/clients the best experience, but response time to tenants is equally critical.

As to your question: I think the 2% rule for Anchorage is very hard to do, and not critical for success (but does make it much easier!)

Having the IRA provider in your local area is not as critical as having real estate expertise in the locale that you are targeting for investment. 

. - think VERY SERIOUSLY about college. education is very important  but not all education is created equal. you will NOT need a fancy school or a degree to be a successful investor, state or community college might be just enough to learn basic principals and critical thinking.

This makes the whole aspect of finding ways to buy properties at a discount a critical component of learning how to make money in real estate these days.

Predicting a 2x or 3x appreciation with a 10-15 year horizon seems like a bet I'd like to be on the other side of at the current moment.Buying a condo versus renting one seems like a solid plan, but in my opinion some of the critical assumptions are off.  

In any case, any offer to lease or purchase the property made to the landowner should be tied to milestones that you lay out in the form of a short critical path which is used to define the amount of time you need to obtain project entitlements and get to a shovel ready state and hence the Closing Date. 4.  

Also critical are location the "right" tenant, minimizing vacancy, and developing an efficient low-cost property management model.In order to grow, similar to other investors on BP, I also use cash-out refis and investor equity partners.

Management is a critical factor and that will not be accurately assessed without experience and historical data, these aspects aren't available to private parties.