I wouldn't recommend purchasing an apartment/ condo because the HOA fees will definitely eat up any cash flow... and you could also end up getting hit with a special assessment if we are unlucky enough to get hit with a storm or something (very likely in South Florida).

. - keep the cash flow coming, - refinance within a period of time, ,- 1031 exchange into a better property in a year or so. in my view these are all better than eating the $15k and better than DST which you have no control over.

Sometimes you can have your cake and eat it too!

Would I be correct to state that using the house to secure a mortgage at say 4%, and inflation is running at 8%, you could theoretically say inflation is eating the dollar denominated value of the mortgage by 4%, thus adding 4% to your rate of return? 

The down side of that is that with only 10% down, you have to carry PMI and that can eat away at your cash flow.

Couple this with high out of state demand, e-commerce eating everything that can function, there's not a lot of legal wiggle room for tenants.

Argue all you want that you can't eat appreciation, but you can when you capture it through cash out refi, trade, sale, etc. and over time, it turns out to be a cash flow king if held long enough.If you intend to house hack, you have already mitigated some risk to the COVID crisis as a landlord and screening  your tenants is another mitigation factor.

Always run the numbers, but as a general rule condo fees eat all your profit.

I was very tempted to do a commercial MFH but I would be putting all my eggs in one basket so to speak. 

Personally, I'm a fan of not "having all my eggs in the same basket".