My assumption (and that's all it should be taken as) is that you as the landlord are responsible for actually removing the water from the basement and furthermore getting the property back into a healthy state or habitability. 

Meanwhile our skeptical 68 yr old family member, now in very poor health, is still working trying to afford retirement & recently took out a large adjustable rate HELOC to live on & maintain an image.

@Kai Van LeuvenSerious reply.I heard David Greene talking about how self driving cars will change the value of downtown areas but I don't believe it. sure things will change some but safe healthy urban areas will always be in demand.

I contribute to my 401k to get the healthy match and then some more, also 3% to a Roth 401k.

By not overselling it with words like AWESOMENESS.Our first real estate investment happened when I was very well established in my career, had healthy balances in our retirement accounts, and could afford taking a loss if it came to it.

I think something someone retired might consider with comparing one vs the other...is one can click a button, click another button years later and end up with a healthy return.

Enough money to buy healthy meals if you don't like to cook, etc.But the one thing I can't generate any more of is time.In the next post I'll outline how we made the money and how long it took (about 30 years), and the event of fortunate timing and good luck that started it (my grandmother pushing my parents to buy some apartments after the S&L crisis around 1990 - when banks could barely give complexes away and you could do 90% leverage deals).I'm the fortunate son of a grandmother who had a classic value investor's eye (even though she was trained as a nurse) and who started buying single family homes back in the 1950's and renting them out.

These are expensive to work on and requires the landlord to pay for the heating of the water.A lot of the soil there is unstable and you see foundation problems at many apartment buildings. 

Gut is an amazing thing - the generator of health!I

By 2014, the building had appreciated and I had paid down a healthy chunk of the principal balance on the loan (which lowered my strike price).