You'll see that with inflation you are losing money year after year unless you are adjusting rents to keep up. 

This makes sense because if it outpaced inflation long enough nobody could afford a house, and if it was under the inflation rate long enough houses would be so cheap that everyone would be able to afford one.  

Even if our values go up, taxes should be pegged more or less to inflation or some accepted budget increase. 

Empirically speaking, it's not accurate to say the predicted ARVs are "inflated" (appraisals are used as just one input to estimating value).Raw data for each transaction is available in a public Google Sheet for investors to analyze.Visit https://blog.groundfloor.com/an-analysis-of-arv-es... for a link to the sheet and more details.

I would always just assume appreciation keeps up with inflation on average  so it's a mute point, but yea it makes sense that you're getting a 4% appreciation on $100,000, not 4% appreciation on $20,000, which is HUGE.Thanks a ton, y'all have been extremely helpful!

While I understand realistically anything this distance from Boston is tough because market prices are so inflated in the suburbs like Natick, Wellsley etc, you can do big things a little further out near Worcester, which is pretty up and coming, and in the worst case, you're a 45-1h drive down the Pike to your investment.

If you decide to not purchase in San Diego, look for a market that has historical appreciation above inflation and some cash flow (a hybrid market).Good luck.

Being that I am planning on moving to Ca, property is definitely a little more inflated over other markets, but if this is where I end up residing, I hope to be able to find something that makes sense (and cashflows).

Usually a good thing when income increases are outpacing inflation over the course of a decade and a half, typically means the local economy is doing good.

And if you’ve read landlording on autopilot(if you haven’t you should) you can do as the author and do a rent increase of roughly 3% each year to keep up with rising costs and inflation.