Few people could get mortgages, and home prices continued to fall.

There are lots of different scenarios that could come into play here.

Many people in our society want to vilify landlords for doing their jobs.Have you considered this as you begin or continue to grow your investment portfolio?

@Jeremy BartlettGo talk to them and lay the law down If they continue theIr bad behavior then post a comply or quit document up

I know very little about commercial space but have a good commercial property resource.3) Use private money and leverage my flexible schedule to manage deals.4) Go into saving mode until I have enough money saved to continue deals.Anything I'm missing here or any recommendations from someone who has made this transition?

I know the other factors that come into play such as location, average rent, etc.

Luckily, we decided to continue investing all the way through the recession and those purchases enabled us to enter real estate again at a comfort level that we were both happy with. 

At least this way she leaves (hopefully) on good terms and you continue to collect rent the entire time she's occupying the property. 

Reason being if deal goes bad you walk away clean and they suffer.I also would never recommend to anyone to have 100% leverage as your playing with fire in those situations. 

Anything can be fixed however if the underlying problem is the soil then you will continue to have possible problems.