Seems like an artificial way to make a market and create money. 

It is introducing cheap money into the market that will artificially drive up housing costs.  

The life estate could also be seen as an artificial limitation to your investment activity. 

@Thomas D. if I understand correctly, you and your uncle are going to form a conspiracy to falsely inflate the value of your properties for the purpose of taking loans from a bank in amounts larger that would be allowed if not for the artificial inflation.  

You and I are on the same page about the effects of increasing rates (they couldn’t stay so artificially low for so long without consequnces) and the benefits of the tax billI asked you if you had any data or could at least point to any tangible signs of the Bay Area market taking a “hard hit” (your words) any time soon. 

My suggestion is going with ether pavers or artificial turf. 

@Bill S. makes some great points -- if it was just about the numbers then we'd all invest in artificial intelligence and analytics and have a bot decide what properties to buy.My thought: I don't think anyone has mentioned it, but you can increase CoC by investing in the property.

The cap expense estimate needs to be accounted for every month otherwise your cash flow analysis will indicate artificially high. 

The paperwork I had to fill out to sell my house in 2015 was three times as long as the rental agreement I signed that year.As food for thought on how landlords might be impacted eventually by the trends today, think about artificial intelligence replacing humans.

So there is a legitimate reason why the prices are going up there, as opposed to places in North America where prices are fuelled by artificially low interest rates and too many investors chasing too few properties.