Look, i dont give a damn who you bow to or whoś defense you run to; just dont lecture me. 

It will grow at 5 - 7% tax free compounded. 

Compounded by the fact that at that level the "change" that is expected takes a while to come into focus, until then it is speculation, and the business world has to make worst case assumptions. 

So, without tax planning, your after-tax rate of return will get slashed and therefore, so will your ability to "compound" your interest income year over year.To prepare for a talk with the CPA, the best thing you can do is to determine some lending goals  for yourself (i.e., approximately how much interest income you project each year for the next couple of years).   

My strategy is use the cash flow generated now to reinvest those funds to compound that wealth.

I have no buffer, they live on the same property and until I discover a better way of seeing red flags earlier i may bow out.

And get this, when I confronted the neighbors about it, the husband bows his head and sleeks away; the wife tells me that since there was a big rain that washed debris from my yard to hers, and I was not there to clean it up, she didn't feel obligated to honor our agreement!  

I am convinced that many landlords fail running low-income rentals either because they refuse to acknowledge this reality or because they are not good at communicating, setting, and sticking to acceptable and reasonable boundries.EXACTLY Jill  its very tough for an investor in a high priced market making 100 to 500k a year and wants to buy rentals in lower end areas because they look so great on paper.. well buying them that's easy.. but managing the tenant base is a skill all its own.I have always said owners can be their absolute own worse enemy.. they have no clue how hard it is to live on 1500 or 2000  a month.so when little things happen and they bow their back up thinking the tenant should pay for it etc.. it becomes stepping over dollars to pick up pennies.. and then when they have no success and tenant gets up set trash's their unit.. and after they have rehabbed it 3 times in 4 years they just walk away.. :(  house goes to pot and then some investor or wholesaler picks it up and the cycle repeats.. these properties in my mind for the good of the community should ONLY be owned by locals who know the score know how to run them. 

4 - If properties have been increasing in value over a period of time, they will always increase at the same rate...in all areas.5 - Depending on events that you have no control over isn't speculating = banking on appreciation.6 - Depending on a tenant to make a payment the next month, when they have been doing so for the last (fill in a number here) months is speculating.7 - The single line gains seen from imprisoned virtual value (equity), is better than the compounded gains seen from usable real value (cash).

Yes, the pandemic has compounded your problem, but the fact is, even if the pandemic had not happened, you still would have had a very hard time evicting in NYS, even for straightforward non-payment of rent.