I started like many, and was a reluctant landlord because of a house that wouldn't sell. 15 years later and an extremely rocky time during the housing bubble burst, I have finally crawled out of the hole and am ready to look into investing again. I was able to keep our original rental, but lost the other properties at a large financial cost. Now I am EXTREMELY loan adverse. "The borrower is slave to the lender", so I am not interested in being in that position again. The only, and I mean only, borrowing I am considering is an equity line on the rental that is almost paid off. Is real estate the wrong investment path for me, or is this just the super slow lane? I get leverage.....what I learned the hard way was that it works both ways. 

Saving for the next turn-key rental will take approximately 2 years with these assumptions:

8,000/year net rental income reinvested per rental. 100K or less 3/2 houses. 25K equity line.