Buy a SF rental, add some value (minor rehab), and refinance as the FED reduces rates in 2025-2026.

Either people need to start earning more money (we can debate this since it looks like we are already in a recession here), interest rates need to decline (looks like the Fed is about to start doing this) or prices need to decline which has already started to happen.My vote is on lower interest rates and price declines until the market finds its balance and you see transactions start to increase.

REI's BLINDESIDED Over New Fed RuleThe Feds put a new law in place.

Economists note that job growth in typically underreported industries fell by 42,000 compared to the 6-month average, suggesting August’s numbers may understate actual gains.Key Employment GainsConstruction: +34,000 jobs, driven by heavy civil engineering and nonresidential trade contractors.Healthcare: +31,000 jobs, though slower than the past year's monthly average of 60,000.Social Assistance: +13,000 jobs, with more modest growth compared to previous months.Other growing sectors include financial activities, wholesale trade, and government (+24,000 jobs).Job Losses and Sector StrugglesManufacturing: -24,000 jobs.Retail: -11,100 jobs.Temporary help employment continues to shrink, reflecting business uncertainty.Wage and Fed Policy ImplicationsWages rose by 0.4% in August, up 3.8% year-over-year, supporting a cautious approach by the Federal Reserve on deeper rate cuts.

I had to grade and level the entire property and plant new grass and it's now one of the prettiest lawns on the entire black.

We would treat this like a code violation for parking on the grass or having trash out front.

A normalized FED Funds rate might settle around 2-2.5%, but reaching this level could take 1-1.5 years of rate cuts, depending on inflation, unemployment data, and other economic indicators.ConclusionThe current distress in the multifamily market presents a significant opportunity for mezzanine debt and preferred equity investors.

Right now though its just so hard.If anyone has been where I am now with just being fed up with it all and you can let me know how you handled it-- or if you have any sort of perspective you can offer I would really love to hear it. 

For the sake of providing a counter-argument:The real estate market has overperformed since 2010, the Fed also started QE during Covid, so saying that you have made more in equity shouldn't be much of a surprise, considering this is one of the fastest run-ups in history.When you say "Cash-flow" investors, you are really saying investors who want "20-30%" of their total cashflow distribution to be during the hold-period, rather than at the end. 

They are more aligned with fed action and the secondary market, so DSCR will follow rate trends.