They are in for the long term even if an agent is likely to crash and burn.Everything is negotiable.

It would be a shame to have everything come crashing down because somebody made up an injury or something and sued you to steal your equity away.  

He operates in quite a few markets, and in one saw huge rent drops and vacancies during The Crash, and in another saw rents increase.

@Wei LiTraditionally the answer to this question on these forums is:Waiting to invest until the market crashes does not help your creditability with banks in the future.

I've seen a couple of investors Crash and Burn behind skipping the CO process.

Crash in your mom's basement.

If crap hits the fan, and you can’t rent, market crashes, ect ect you aren’t stuck with that higher mortgage payment.

In fact, come to think of it, ever since my "come back", I never stopped buying apartments since 2004 - so I bought on the way up, during the peak, during the crash, on the way down and on the way back up to recovery phase.And I agree with you on the real estate market being hyper local - it's down to the neighborhood level not just the city level.

I was reading in one of Brandon Turners books about how he will only purchase a property for 20% less than what it’s worth in order to protect against a market crash.

The boomers at the Fed and in gov. won't allow this, but like my point above, if you suppress market forces long enough, eventually you unleash a crash and the problem gets solved chaotically.Conclusion: rent control is dumb, there are way bigger forces at play when "the rent is too damn high!"