How you have handled credit in the past as if it will help predict what you will do in the future.Specific issues to consider.US tax ID.US address as part of the score is based on your presence or lack of presence.History of having credit so working to get credit established.Assets that show up or can be verified.Bank accounts and other such things.You might need to do deals where you are effectively paying a bit of money just to build up credit.

After all, Buffett, Icahn, Drunkenmiller, Paul Tudor Jones, Dalio, etc. do not necessarily all  agree on this.However, since an inflationary environment is more predictable (or at least more familiar to us), I find myself wondering what would be the impact to REI if long-term deflation comes upon us?

Just' appreciation is how I think about those wacky, hard to predict, market forces.

Most financial advisers are predicting that the gains rate will in fact go to 20% and is not likely to be affected by any tax legislation.The seller may have other reasons for claiming the income in 2010 as well that are totally separate from the RE.

My current business runs smoothly and is very predictable because of the years I've spent refining it.  

So predicting your needs down the road is a crap-shoot. 

You can though find 30k homes in little towns scattered throughout the US... challenges there will be minimum wage renters and no hope of type of appreciation.. which even in the major metro areas there is little appreciation to speak of simply because were your going to buy is dominated by rentals and investors only pay by return on investment.. to get appreciation you would need major moves in rent rates and that just has not happened .. rents have stayed pretty stagnate in most of those areas and are not predicted to go up.. you go up above the current rent rates.. and folks are going to buy homes at least your premium tenants.. you will always in those markets have your lifelong tenant

Downtown LA is expected to grow rapidly as it has been, predicted 7-10% rise in value by next year.

Arnie,  What you are proposing is called "predictive maintenance". 

I don't believe that I'm smart enough to predict a real estate downturn or upturn, not even in my own market of Denver, CO, much less the rest of the U.S.