Medium term too many things out of your control to predict so don't bother, just be ready to ride it out if you need to. 

If not, sell and reinvest in a Class A or B property where they tenants will be more predictable.

Whereas, insurance is less predictable.

It's less about which is better and more about setting a solid foundation for creating consistency and predictability in your lead flow. 

While the market here has stabilized and things are looking better it is impossible to predict. 

The biggest issue for me now is finding time while forking a day job in NYC with a hour commute each way.OTOH, if by the time your are 65+ you may be just totally fed up with this business and want to cash out and hopefully by this time you have built up a good amount of equity in your investments if you bought right and managed right you should be in a great position to cash out and find truly passive investments if that's what you desireIt's also hard to predict how one will feel 15 20 years into the future.

It is impossible to predict vacancy rates.  

Also it doesn't do much for predicting other than that maybe you can infer metros won't move too far per year...I was thinking more of something that would allow us to look at various socioeconomic trends and draw conclusions.  

I'm sorry if this question seems a bit broad, but I'm really just getting into REI and see all these posts about people speculating on the performance of a given market in the next 5-10 years, and I was just wondering what exactly you're looking at to make those predictions?

You cant predict the future