And this is CRE, so it's cutthroat, it's no one's problem but your own if you lose an earnest money deposit. 

If I tried to base my renewal on expenses only I would increase above market rents and probably lose my current residents because of that. 

You mention they are a good tenant and if that’s the case, then I wouldn’t want to lose them over this.

if you just bought a property with it, for example, you would likely lose money on it forever.

If the market slows down even just a little...catches a tiny little cold...you will lose all your money and the lender will likely take a loss also.I ran a distressed debt fund for 5 years, DO Income Fund, and we had hard limits when buying distressed debt.

China is natural resource poor and dependent on the rest of the world to fill that void, and with cheap labor drying up they will lose some ground on the manufacturing side. 

But then wouldn’t I be losing all the gained equity in our primary home?

Do I lose revenue - yes.

Projects can lose money.

Compare that to what you are losing now which appears to be nothing except the inconvenience of a less than ideal payment pattern. 4.