It also provides geographic and asset class diversification and is run by professional teams...on the flip side, you don't have control.

Diversification is your safety net creating 5X the returns on your investment and 5X the potential appreciation.

I would recommend diversifying three ways:1) capital stack location: debt versus equity. 2) commercial versus residential (you can invest in single-family homes through passive investments as well)3) commercial real estate asset class types (mentioned by others such as medical, fast service restaurants, retail, etc.)Each of the different choices has a different risk reward profile, so it's important to first understand what those are, then take a look at your own risk profile, and then come up with a game plan of how you want to structure your portfolio for diversification.

Really want to expand my geographic diversification, but just dont have time to travel/and or understand other markets.

Diversification helps reduce risk.

Diversification is not as rosy as Wall Street people would have you believe.

When it comes to an all cash transaction juxtaposed to leveraging hard money (or any other type of financing), I keep a simple analogy in mind to help me understand the benefit of diversification. 

Many Chinese are keen to get the money out of China in line with their diversification strategy.  

I think lower price points and a diversification of industry will insulate us more than some other, particularly coastal, markets.Are you really seeing any issue with tenants paying?

This can allow a person to get much better diversification protection across geographies, asset types, strategies, investment subclasses etc.