Obviously, there are corrections within a cycle (and scandals), but the overall trend is up.On top of that, buy and hold strategies have a 10,20, to 30 year horizon.

I would get a real pro as you begin to expand your investing horizon, especially once you begin to add property.

I get 9% with wefundflips.comReal estate crowdfunding sites have similar time horizons, higher rates of return (12%) and you can be liquid within a year.

The reason is for them to take on regular investors the sponsor wants a structure more advantageous to them otherwise they just go with institutional money.The institutions have to return to their investors in a smaller horizon so front load many returns and payback upfront.

In the long run we're all dead, so expand the time horizon enough and nothing is sustainable as far as any of us are directly concerned ... short of that, I agree that you need to carefully define your time horizon and assess the impacts that has on your strategy before you answer these questions ... or sometimes not even short of that; personally, some of my assets will go to my children, so my time horizon for some investments extend well beyond my own death.

I apologize for being vague about it, and I'm not independently wealthy yet, but I never in my life thought I would be in a position where I could clearly see the day on the horizon.

I suppose I would say that while learning about real-estate is fine, you may want to broaden your horizons for now.

For me, cashflow is king, and appreciation will be an inevitable consequence considering my time horizon.

with bitcoin or commodities even if I had a 5-10yr horizon.  

One option if you are concerned about short term volatility is to flip ... if you are disciplined about what you buy, the price you pay, and your rehab timelines, you should be able to get in and out with a profit even if the market starts to go down, as that doesn't happen over night.At the other end of the extreme, if you have a very long time horizon (10-20+ years) then it also matters less if you buy at the market top or bottom as it all comes out in the wash and averages out over many decades, holding through both up and down cycles.