@David Crumley...why not just buy a commercial asset with 30% leverage, 10-15 year note, 7-10% cap.  10-15 years from now you would have tripled your investment assuming zero inflation and you can focus on other ventures.  10-15 years later leverage against the property or 1031 exchange into a larger asset.  

Also, today’s money is worth less than next year’s money when there’s inflation.

She has a pension, but Stockton rents are rising so fast, she may move out.

If 30 year treasuries is 3% and inflation is 3%, perhaps thats just your thing. 

This reconciles with the Fed’s goal of 2% inflation.

I like to be informed of the long run of the market before jumping in, and I hope to bring that philosophy into real estate.How granular can the data get, say for the metropolitan area level, for metrics such as inflation-adjusted rent (for 1 br?

Is'nt a crash just a disaster where a lot of things go down including your own employment, savings, higher and rising vacancy rates, rapidly falling rents.

Buyers are getting squeezed by rising mortgage rates and by prices climbing about twice as fast as incomes, and there’s only so far they can stretch.

Prices didnt go down when rates were at those levels before.Rising rates are a reaction to inflation.

tax's can and do rise annually.. also some states have home owner exemptions and if your buying the home from an owner occ and look at their tax's they can be half of less of what an investor will pay an you don't realize it until the next year when U don't file your owner occ exemption..