Lastly, they’re going to want a higher interest rate than they can get from the bank for taking the risk.

And, even then, hitting your rate target would still be extremely challenging unless you were paying points up front, in which case it would probably make more sense to just try to put in a bigger down payment (or pay down the balance if refi) instead and get better terms naturally offered at the lower LTV.

I think you have to find what your strengths are and what your risk tolerance is in different areas of RE and look at your entire financial picture.  

or put a different way, how many months of inventory was considered a "balanced" market?

I think we are competitively priced, so most of out tenants have been renewing, but we plan to test higher rents in 2025  for our larger apartment buildings to account for the steep increase in insurance prices.There have been A LOT of new apartment buildings put up recently in the Cedar Rapids metro area, so depending on the class of tenant you have, maybe that could account for some of softening you are seeing? 

Even if the rental has a decent cash flow with additional flood insurance, we're still not sure we want to take on that risk as we are out-of-state investors (planning to move back to KY in the future, but not now) and we don't like that it will potentially bring down the perceived value when we try to sell it in the future.The seller has never lived there and has not provided any information on if it has flooded before or not. 

Units are cheap and they just put a Starbucks in so there's got to be something growing there.North of Worcester ie. 

There is definitely other investors in the BP community that have gone through this exact situation.I work with many investors that need to identify where to put their 1031 proceeds. 

As for how much I’d put down, it typically ranges from $0 to $100K, depending on what I’m bringing to the table or what my partners are contributing.

Reducing risk requires at least some time spent in research and involvement in a deal.There are many other things you learn along the way as well.