Imputing your time into any analysis and how active or passive you want to be is a big piece of the puzzle as is your horizon and risk tolerance for this investment for this part of your overall portfolio subject to the needs for the distributions.  

And certainly don’t do it in a town with a horizon sloping towards declining values AND declining population as the one trick pony ages into a slow painful unstoppable death.

If you have a long term investment horizon I would recommend investing in an area that has an upward renting job and population growth rate like Columbus, Ohio

Need positive cash flow but appreciation is main objective given long-term horizon.

To further simplify, let's say there's no principal paydown (since it will be equivalent in both examples).What's your investment horizon?

But as you pointed out, I'm looking at a longer investment horizon, so I'm okay with that.My main argument is that it's flatly wrong to look at appreciation as a bonus.

No real opportunity yet but there are some defaults on the horizon.

I would also be careful of jumping into deals right now we are on the horizon of a price reset.

The courts are backed up and aren't hearing eviction cases despite the L1 having been served.With June on the horizon, I don't expect any rent coming in.

I would not touch commercial RE at this time, not for at least 12-18 months as there is much potential volatility on the horizon, needs to work it's way through a bit more to have better clarity of forecast.