Brandon,1) Yes, you missed the boat.2) Without knowing which part/city of CA you live in, I can't say with any certainty about the cash flow with 20% down.3) There are deals that still cash flow, but the yield is definitely getting compressed.

CAP rates and vacancy rates have no room for further compression and rents have already increased with little upside remaining.

I wonder if they are seeing the cap rate compression that multi-family has been experiencing over the past couple of years?

Lost the buildings to the bank.. vacancies created negative cash flow on fully leveraged 200 to 300 unit buildings.. down they went investors wiped out. that was 89 to 92... now to be fair... the Holy Grail of prime real estate values IE San Francisco CA in the same time and down the Penninsula to Los Gatos  saw 30 to 50% price compression as well...

With high prices and compressed CAP rates, I didn't find any properties that met my criteria.

For sure, the only way that works if it is in an area where cap rates are compressing and assets are appreciating significantly.

With where we are in the market there is not much cap rate compression to be had on those types of properties for equity upside to the sponsor. 4 to 5 years ago at the bottom they might have picked up 200 to 300 basis points in compression selling today.

This has help to lead to a compression of the middle class in this country over the last 14 years. 

In the market where I work, Pasadena and Alhambra, the cap rates are so compressed.

Today's market in some states/cities has over demand and under supply so the cap rates compress (more people bidding for every deal pushes the prices higher).If interest rates go up eventually the cost of money will be too expensive to continue and over bid and there will be a lot less people bidding on properties thus, less demand which in turn will cause the prices to go down.In markets where the demand does not exceeds supply the impact will be much less noticeable.