Loan Pay down and breaking even on cash flow

[Carlos Lopes]

I feel like I’ve been posting a lot lately! 

Something I've been thinking about is the benefits of loan pay down. So I've been listening to bigger pockets a lot, and am learning that a BRRRR method is a good method for making money. But let's say you buy a property for fair value, and it just barely cash flows or you just break even. On this forum and podcast, most people make it sound like that is completely unacceptable and you should get rid of the property.

Hypothetically,  let’s say you have a property that barely cash flows and isn’t appreciating much in the long term. The property isn’t really making you passive income, but it’s also not costing you anything to own.  If you have a long term 10 plus year outlook, wouldn’t loan paydown still be a positive for keeping the rental? I mean at the end of the day if you kept the house long enough and rented, you could still walk away with a paid off home. In my mind this is the worst case scenario. 

So where I’m getting at is, if your goal to replace your W2 with passive rental income isn’t working out, at the end of the day you’d still have passive equity being built that you could withdraw some day. Isn’t this a win? Thoughts?