We first went with sell and put the house on the market in the first week of August 2021. wo major factors contributed to our decision; COVID inflated values by crazy margins and our contractor offered to foot 12k of the repairs to make the property sell ready if we use his GF as realtor.

Because of inflation, increased property taxes, higher insurance costs, etc, every year you don’t raise the rent, you are losing money.

Outside of super inflated markets you should be able to cashflow.

Most contractors have one in house but wont' share with the general public because those costs can fluctuate from job to job and with the inflation costs of materials and labor.

The money will just be sitting in the bank or under your mattress collecting little to no interest that will definitely less than inflation (especially right now). 

You'll do better than inflation over really any period of time with well-managed and diversified investments made in static acquisitions, but you won't make real money unless you have the skill and capital to pull off 1a or 1b.I for one have been very reluctant to learn about blockchain and the market luckily I have seen how it simply affected the stock market, take BTCS for example.

Has anyone taken that kind of step as a hedge against inflation?

Would you direct the excess CF generated by the properties to pay down the mortgages ASAP to create more cushion or not given today's high inflation and relatively low mortgages rates?

Would you direct the excess CF generated by the  properties to pay down the mortgages ASAP to create more cushion or not  given today's high inflation and relatively low mortgages rates?

The prices of real estate are crazy-expensive these days, mainly because of the inflation that has been stimulated by the huge amount of dollars printed in 2020.