I get tired of people "predicting" things while not furnishing any data.  

So, my answer to your question is: The bad news is you can't predict it; the good news is if you buy right, it doesn't matter.

I have been browsing the Forums a little and was looking for some metrics to evaluate and even (to some extent) attempt to predict how a real estate market is doing on a general basis.

@Rodney Dixon tax lien investing is simply not that predictable.

As it is hard to predict market cycles and appreciation / depreciation, I left it out of the equation for now. 

It's long, almost never predictable, and takes occasional grit to press on, but the rewards are worth it!

And a cap rate is never meant to predict profitability so there are other calculations that will determine if the buyer wants a property at market cap rate.Residential properties are generally NOT encumbered by long term leases except say in the case of rent control where identical buildings can have drastically different NOI's because one has 30 year tenants at low rents and another just replaced their 30 year old tenants that died with new market rate tenants. 

I know that many people make predictions about the stock market but real estate market isn't normally discussed in the local news here in Hawaii.

If I was smart enough to predict gold prices, I would have been retired decades ago!

My prediction is that this wealth gap will grow further in the next two years, but if our economy tanks again, or we hit real inflation, you can expect social unrest, cause I sense a sh*t-storm brewing from my vantage point here in SF, with all the protests about middle class people getting priced out.