Also, no one can predict the market, but there are 8-12 year recession cycles and we are in the 10th year currently, meaning when your tenant's lease is up you may find it harder to sell and easier to rent.... maybe, maybe not. 

Lastly, although there seems to be conflicting views on whether buy/sell cycles can be predicted in certain markets, I want to make sure I'm not overpaying.

To be fair, all those predicting doom could very well be right...this year. 

If appraisal algorithms are able to predict home values within 1 percent of the eventual sale price, this will have huge implications for the appraisal industry, as well as lending as it would save hundreds of dollars and speed up the loan process.

I agree that if you can sell now, walk away with what you want then do it....We cannot predict the future and most economics/industry leaders are predicting that the housing market will cool off again.Also keep in mind that people that occupy a house never want to pay full retail for the property.

(source: Deloitte - Blockchain in Commercial Real Estate).David Sacks, former COO @ Paypal, gave an interview to Fortune magazine recently, where he predicted that real estate will be the vanguard for a market where all sorts of assets, from fine art to shares in private funds, will be tokenized on a distributed ledger”.

The CAP rate is useful to help you predict the value of the property when you sell (which will be included in the cash flows).

There could be a recession in our future but I don't predict that it will be anything like what we saw back then. 

It involved rental of a time share via the management company that sold the time share to the taxpayers and screwed the taxpayers by renting their units (predictably) last.

Thin margins on rehab ARV, thin margins on rent, no unit standardization, larger lot sizes that are less tax advantageous, and frankly not enough people doing it to make an exit predictable and easy.