Getting started in investing if you expect a housing crash?

[James Elden]

I'm not claiming to know the future or to be certain of anything but I have followed the stock / bond markets for a while and believe that yields will continue to rise and that this could lead to a housing crash, I realize others may have different opinions and that's fine and you may end up being more correct with your predictions than me, it is just that at the moment all my thoughts around getting into real estate investing are with this scenario in mind. Despite this, I do still want to get into real estate investing and this is actually a very good time for me to do it as far as my personal situation as I have a job now where I'm able to work remotely. Because I am trying to hedge against a housing market crash one option I have been looking into is that of buying very cheap houses ($60k and under) as these usually don't gain or lose much appreciation so, from my analysis, I wouldn't lose as much value if the overall market crashed. Although I have some cash to buy one, maybe two of these outright, I don't want to get stuck in a situation where I can't easily pull money back out with a refi and, from my research and attempts to contact lenders so far (including some smaller banks, credit unions) they don't like to deal with houses in this range.

I'm wondering if there are other types of real estate investing I should consider looking at where I would have more financing options available to me but I wouldn't be as exposed to a potential crash? My overall goal is cash flow, I already do trading in the stock and bond markets so, as much as possible, I don't want to be doing anything resembling a trade with real estate investments which is what investing for appreciation "feels like" to me so basically am hoping to figure out some more options for real estate investments I can make for cash flow that are more sheltered from appreciation / depreciation (I'm fine with giving up future appreciation potential if it also protects me from depreciation).