Definitely and inflatable wailing flailing tube man!

It is the compromises that you overlook and are not aware of making that tend to bite you.You are correct in that I look at both cash flow AND appreciation over the LONG TERM ... to me, it is just as risky (maybe even more risky) investing in a property with positive cash flow but negative (inflation adjusted) appreciation as it is investing in a property with positive appreciation but negative (day 1) cash flow.

It seems that there are thousands of dollars wasted on property tax that are due to inflated values.How do you go about your property tax appeal process for your properties?

How should I account for inflation? 

I wonder why there's inflation?

Cap rate is not an objective measure, even if was purported to be so, would you trust government published inflation numbers?

Treasury direct is good to buy I-bonds with a yield over 6% for 6 months but you don't know what the next 6 months will be because it is based on inflation

And finally, and this is the big one that most miss, rent goes up every year (faster than inflation on long term average going back decades in LA) while a mortgage (the "P" and "I" portion of it anyhow) stays the same ("T" goes up slower thanks to Prop 13, and "I" goes approx with inflation). 

That's why in recent history (when most of the people in STR entered the space) it was so overinflated, because it was using inflated covid data. 

Just today they had a massive heroin bust:  http://www.krdo.com/news/pueblo/pueblo-pd-announce...Pueblo's home's appreciated at about 2% (lower than inflation) while Denver areas were going up 15%.