It will take you close to 3 years to generate this amount of cash w/ the $10800/month cash flow.  

Do a search on Bigger Pockets to see if there are any recommendations for on line resources to generate comparables.

Great way to generate some cash flow but it's work unless you hire out the cleaning and someone to respond to your inquiries.

2) You're saying this little unit for $135K will generate $45K in gross rents.

Your dad's generation is mostly about home ownership and rental property is probably new territory to him.

My long term goal is to generate enough passive income from real estate to support my family.

Let's say an apartment complex costs 100K and generates 10K in cash flow, assumes now market demands 15% CAP rate, and a rent increase of 20%.  

They will never generate equity and (from my experience) they will never go down, only up.

My goal is to leverage my assets to build a portfolio of rental properties and other investments to generate monthly cash flow now and into retirement.I've really enjoyed BP so far as it's been a fantastic source of information and perspectives.

It's an iron clad rule of investing: never spend your capital.As for the profits, it depends upon where you are in your investing cycle.When I had other income, every penny the real estate generated went right back into real estate and got added to my capital.Now that my only income is my real estate, all of my living expenses come out of the profit.I suspect it also depends upn how much support you are getting from your spouse.