I advise people to hold property forever unless they can move the money into another investment that produces a greater return or moves them closer to their goals.

There are too many varieties to be relaying on advice from people who haven't seen it and it's not their area of expertise.

I am a operator of few and a realtor and just sold a empty assisted living home , if its operating currently , only options to refinance and purchase will be commercial loans tried myself and no luck hard hide is a assisted living with people in it heard of some doing some crazy stuff but hate going illegal on things like this,  ended up refi with commercial forget about cash out and such, and you are bound by appraisal as a commercial property which was in our case 25% lower then if we sold it empty as a residential home.  

Bigger Pockets is the best place for advice (imo) but a lot of people get stuck when taking the plunge.

I will say, when looking, use as much useful data as you can, but more importantly, work with people who know how to interpret the data.

That being said I have a few questions that I hope some people can answer for us.

His takeaway from his loss was that all debt is inherently bad and people should only buy investment homes in cash. 

What assistance are you looking for?

I would have people do at least some of this work you will lose time  market if you don't. 

As far as outcomes... the goal would be to simply make quality connections with people and exchange some form of contact information with those quality connections.