There are good ways to spend money on education and sub-optimal ways.

Start learning SEO to rank your site higher.  

@Scott V.It's not optimized, obviously - but it's a choice that will put you back a bit from full FI, and slow your real estate investing as well, possibly, but it's an informed choice to do it.

There is a blind optimism you see in this forum and other parts of the real estate world that I don't see in any of the actual investors I know.

It seems like those guys would agree with Lenahan's take that the relative optimism of this thread will not age well. 

So for those starting out in RE, there is no need to optimize return by going super high leverage. 

The level of financial sophistication it take to optimize both leverage and cash is a bridge to far for most on this site, so while I agree with your position that cash is better than debt, I think you are in the minority of investors who frequent this site when it comes to having that capital structure. 

Besides, there're often ways to optimize your tax returns and minimize your taxes. 

Not sure why, maybe they want to create the appearance that they have lots of listings to offer, maybe they have good SEO, whatever.

Cape Coral tends to be much better optimized as an STR market over LTR, but if it was specifically LTR's that you're looking for, Lehigh Acres is another local market that offers cash flowing B class multifamily properties