At this point trading the possibility of long term equity growth for increased cash flow and decreased phone calls at 1:00am seems worth it at this stage of life.

Should I expect the rent I can collect to rise with inflation, or is it likely to steadily decrease?

My all-time fave book for decreasing overwhelm and increasing effectiveness is David Allen's "Getting Things Done"

No rent increases, decreases?

Check frequency and if crimes are increasing or decreasing and also check if most crimes are violent or non-violent offenses.If you are buying 188,000 all cash you might want to look at a larger apartment building where you can leverage with finance.When doing deals you have to look at different pricing for different structures.I would have a different price for: 1. paying all cash2. owner holding a second note3. owner financeYou still do not overpay but when you put all cash down you need to get more yield for the property as you want to easily recapture some of that liquidity.If you have 2 million cash and are spending 200k it's can be not as important but if you are spending 188,000 cash and you have only 250,000 total then it becomes a bigger issue.

Don't let them con you into decreasing repairs and capex because it's a new build, you're still going to have those expenses down the line and tenants do cause damage.

I refinanced in September 2021 and that decreased my monthly mortgage payment by 200$, so refinance or HELOC does not seem to be an option here.

A dynamic spreadsheet can be useful to stress test the development project to establish the highest terminal capitalization rate that would still provide a sufficient upside to investors.Savvy real estate investors look for markets and property types for which market capitalization rates are expected to fall since a lower terminal capitalization rate, compared to the going-in cap rate, will result in capital gains, assuming that the NOI will not decrease over the holding period.

No way I could have done as well with good cash flow but no value add or appreciation.For those without significant reserves, cash flow can be necessary to handle regular events (maintenance/cap ex, vacancy, property tax and/or insurance increase) as well as potential unexpected events (tenant not paying and not vacating, rent decrease, etc).  

On the other hand, there could be depreciation expense reducing the income, but that is a non-cash expense so it doesn't decrease the cash flow.