My observation with most people are they dont like big business.

Landlord friendly vs tenant friendly and the overall demographics - price-appreciation - local market fluctuations - all interesting trends to observe and learn.PS: Agree on the fact that multi-family makes you the most money eventually & old-time investors or general thumb rule has been to stay local - buy/manage local etc.

I don't know if I can provide advice that tops anything that those with deep real estate investment experience in the area might be able to provide, but I've been an interested observer of the Bay Area housing market since the tech economy began rebounding in the early aughts.My take is that property value within San Francisco itself will continue to teeter at an elevated rate for the foreseeable future (this is somewhat of a given considering how small the city itself is, and how fierce the demand for property remains).

What I've observed is that many banks have rather inflexible guidelines as to how they price a property they list for sale, and how long they must leave the listing at that price before lowering. 

However a home inspector wrote yhat he observed cracks.  

What would you guys do with 10k in an IRA account, what Ive been observing is i kinda have to jump into it unless i will never feel content with the information i have learned.

My guess from simple observation of commercial areas would be that residential has less turn over.

@Troy Fisher - thank you very much for your insightful comments and observations.  

As you observed, usually areas are homogenous, but part of the business is taking a parcel zoned for x and then adding value by getting it rezoned for x+10. 

The fun thing about spending time with successful real estate investors, as you have probably observed here on Bigger Pockets, is that they are terrific problem solvers and love the challenge of finding creative solutions to get things done.Feel free to add more detail if my answers are not quite on the mark!