This is the way I see it too. I’m in more or less the same boat. My wife’s salary pays for the household, I buy rentals with mine. I have a good job and don’t have a ton of time. I don’t really want a ton of risk or a bunch of rentals. I currently own six. They are nice houses in appreciating areas. I have approx 80-100k invested in most of them, with about 1/3 to 1/2 that financed. The payments are on 15 year amortizations and I am currently pushing the payments up on one of them to get better cash flow. My plan is to get better cash flow from them and use the cash flow to pay the loans off faster and use my income to buy more. This is my third year buying investment property, and I’ve bought two places per year since I started (one this year).
My goal is 20 rentals, approx $1000/month apiece rent that net me $120-150k per year profit after they are paid off. I’m on track to be there in about 8 years near as I can tell ( approx 40 y/o). From there I’ll probably start selling and flipping or looking at larger deals. I don’t think I want more than 20 rentals that I manage myself.
I don’t think this is a bad strategy. I have a good paying job and don’t want to suck up a bunch of time. I have to invest in something, and with real estate I can defer the income and taxes to later whan I might not have as high an income anyway.