That’s where the cash flow comes into play, if this property was cash flowing $0 to some positive number a month the fluctuations in price would be easier to swallow as the investment would still be cost neutral or making money and it would be less painful to wait for the upswing in the market you would be looking for to sell and make your gains.Just my two cents

Expenses will fluctuate but if you ask for the last months utility bills you should be able to get a good idea of the predictable expenses like that.

Gold can have much larger price swings and doesn't have the potential of creating a passive income stream.Real estate values can fluctuate as we all have learned, but I believe if you looked at gold over a significant period of time you would see that it more volatile.

Appreciation => Speculation, variation, marketing fluctuations and uncontrollable.Cash Flow => dripping faucet, straight into your bank account, month in, month out.I bought in '97 a cash flow with a DSCR of 1.15 on a MFU 6-unit (squeaked in). 

I would consider that both markets are very cyclical and prices fluctuate a good deal depending on the phase of the market cycle we are in...

This is just to ensure no large fluctuation in fees that could kill your cash flow or put you in red in worse scenarios.

Prices can fluctuate greatly based on geographic location.

Prices fluctuate, particularly in the last year.

So, buy and hold, just keep on keeping on as the daily/monthly/yearly fluctuations of the market have absolutely NO AFFECT on my strategy.  

@Randall Alan would this budget depend on location (i.e. might the repair costs fluctuate depending on the city you are in)?