Originally Posted by Silver02ex

You left a big part out, which is tax on capital gains. It's easier to avoid capital gains tax on real estate than investing in Index on Mutual funds on the side. My wife is driving around in our "company" car that we are deducting the depreciation of the car and real estate investment, which offset part of my W2. There's more to real estate investing, than owning a rental property. I sold a commercial property a few years back and provided seller financing to the buyer, while collecting the loan payment and 5% interest rate. That's just a fix rate of return on interest, and doesn't even factor in the valve that it went up before I sold it.