Amen to all of this, owning a rental property may or may not provide a steady source of income, many variables come in to play, age of the property, quality of the tenants, insurance costs,  repairs, legal fees for evictions, property management fees etc, etc.  There are a lot of headaches, unless you buy low and sell high in an active market, the greatest gain may come for holding on the property for an extended period of time, hoping that it will increase in value by the time you are ready to part with it.