To clarify, by no means am I saying that an additional $300/month wouldn't be great, simply that I plan to save the vast majority of the first home's rent to continue to help grow the portfolio and it just seems like little progress can be made

It provided opportunities to build vast cities and suburbs and malls and hotels transitioning from agricultural land.  

Yeah, I’m knockin the hustle.Completely different ballgame that OP is playing in then the vast majority of investors on BP...ever will.

The experienced brokers and agents in the game for awhile in residential have a vast rolodex of existing clients who can take properties down cash all day long.

I've house hacked three times and the equity I've built up in each of them is the vast majority of my net worth.

The vast majority have low credit scores because they are financially irresponsible and will continue to be irresponsible.

Hey Jessica, the vast majority of investors use LLC's.

I used to look at Cash-on-Cash, but it's guesswork...returns on paper and actual property operations are vastly different...it's generally impossible to get accurate with CoC unless you are buying with cash...even then, it's not a good indicator of value...my personal first level filter is the relationship to purchase price and rents...I see too many investors analyze themselves out of the market because they cannot get their number to work...

The vast majority of them are likely honest, high integrity characters with great advice and a story and information worth learning from. 

The vast majority will not try or there will be no money to recover and landlords will have to eat the loss.