I sleep well with most of my disposable income invested in index funds and real estate, while a tiny portion is invested in moonshots. 

Values have definitely gone up but the rental market has not quite caught up.But yes, at 5% down, my margin is tiny.

you could look for opportunities with reverse mortgages in default (backwards marketing) and tax defaulted property (the last group can be difficult to sift and sort due to large quantities).In the end, you’ll do much better focusing on solving problems that others cannot or are not willing to solve (hoarding, squatters, liquidity, defective title, skips, etc.).BTW, I started with working foreclosures (1978) and then deceased owner and title-impaired property about (35) years ago and have closed several thousand deals to date.  

Zillow says it’s worth over 500k, but there are things wrong with it: The pellet stove needs a new tiny door to work, two sliding doors are off kilter, needs some cleaning and the deck could use painting.

I work with a tiny group of men and we wholesale vacant lots across Charlotte, NC and Texas.

(msn.com) Peter I built a 12 foot wide one in Charleston SC on a 15 foot lot.. sold for over 500k .. but thats charleston lots of tiny lots there.

Is your FICO poor, or the loan amount tiny?

Tiny house is currently a successful short term rental booked EVERY weekend.

Most of the investors here are very knowledgeable and experienced and very good at what they do, but they are still a tiny sub-set of all real estate owners on Earth (billions), for those answers you have to look at larger Data sets, which academicians try to collate, but even then, still just an educated guess:This table above shows publicly traded Equity REITs outperforming private Real Estate NCREIF property Index by 13.74% to 9.1% from 2000-2021, almost 4.6% better.

If she is relying on a HELOC to fund a new roof in a few years or on credit liquidity to facilitate any uh-ohs in the near-term, even a tiny decrease in property values will be devastating to her.