I live just west of Portland, and I'm looking to get into REI a little more to supplement my retirement as I'm self-employed (General Contractor) and don't have much of a traditional 401k, etc.I started out buying a duplex as my first house back in 2005, which I lived in one side for 7 years and rented out the other.  

Not sure how the market is where you are, but here short sales are not too common and only slight deals when they do come up.

Tacoma/Olympia/Lacey have a high rental and first time homebuyer demand with the largest (by far) employer being JBLM in Pierce and Thurston county.I am active duty military and an independent real estate agent.

I'm looking to become self-employed and would like to start with Joint Venture Wholesaling.

However, when I look at the IRS publication on per diems it says self-employed persons can write off food per diems. 

Although if the negative interest rates don't keep the economy from deleveraging employment rates might go up substantially even with these crazy labor force participation numbers.  

I am fortunate that duplexes, specifically "shotgun doubles", are a very common architectural style in my city. 

The part of the contract that threw me off was this:"Owner hereby employs  XYZ PROPERTY MANAGEMENT (name changed for propriety's sake), as his exclusive agent for the rental and management of Property.  

If you are self-employed, then there is even a better option available: truly self-directed Solo 401k, which does not require a custodian and nor the LLC to get the checkbook control.

@Kusmayadi Djunaidi  not common for PM to hold your reserves.. at least in SFR small value assets maybe for big multi million dollar commercial deals.