Please ignore all other advice in this thread, as it is speculation.

Once any of the detailed signal a flag it's no longer a happy harmless "Just a UCC filing" So we are still speculating on what the UCCs in question relate to.

It doesn't sound like the house will cash flow, so you are just speculating on appreciation. 

It usually beats the returns from cashflows in non-speculative markets.Hence my questions above.

Many posters on bigger pockets have gone the route of starting their own management firm to share the expense and also build speculatively or your own home.

you talking mixed use in a ( just speculating small mid western town)  the mid west is littered with vacant commercial buildings.habitation for humans is one thing most folks need a roof.. but not everyone needs a small commercial space.not to mention tough to finance.. as for timing its neither good nor bad.when it was good NO one was buying except the very brave and the foriegners with cash.. credit was frozen or US folks were reeling.so now that cash is flush everyone is back in the game.. so there ya go.

Appreciation speculators would probably advise to hold however I have learned you can not buy food or pay your bills with dead equity and accessing it results in the property no longer being a positive investment.When a property does not produce cash flow with a hypothetical 100% financing it will never produce true positive cash flow.

There is a bit of a fine line to walk in an exercise like this though since there is some amount of speculation that will go into it.  

There’s no point in buying on speculation that it’ll appreciate at this time.

This is pure speculation on the whim of the market.