Rented to a nice professional couple, very good income, but just went through a short sale ... so, they sold some stock in their retirement plan and paid me 1 year of rent up front to make up for that.

It just means an investor whose investment objective is generating positive passive monthly income, may better achieve that goal in say Detroit or Baltimore or may have to look into bonds or a dividend paying stock, as opposed to crossing your fingers and waiting on appreciation while getting hit with monthly cash outflow throughout the holding period.So if the number makes sense considerably in the long term... then as some way to avoid walking away from the market completely, the investor may then have to figure out just how much cash is needed for a down payment, to finance a lower principal balance, where they just break even and dont to incur a monthly cash outflow as previously discussed.

Its a dead stagnant market that has virtually stayed the same for the last 60 years. 

I would have started learning about investing in RE in college rather than gambling on stocks while taking notes.If I have the knowledge and drive back then I might have skipped a party to buy a house or two. 

In the above case, 9% IRR.You should think of it as putting the Investment in to a Certificate of Deposit, holding it for 10 years at the 9% IRR per year for the 10 years.The IRR Calculations gives you a fantastic way to calculate ANY type of Investment against each other, including Stocks, Bonds, Real Estate, ANYTHING really.Once you know all the Cashflows for the entire 10 year target life of the Investment, then you can get an IRR for it.Now, let's look at a 2nd Scenario with this EXACT spreadsheet, but with different numbers:We increased the price to $500k, buying in a location that has at least the national appreciation rate.

The concerns include the ability of the floors to handle both dead and live loads.

But for the rest of us, there must be useful approximation techniques to understanding the local real estate markets.I come primarily from the conventional stock and bond portfolio world, where historical dividend yield rates and price appreciation rates are common knowledge for various segments of the market: S&P 500 for domestic large cap, FTSE ex-US for international, Barclays for bonds, etc.

Think of it like trading stocks. 

The tenant base is polarizing, some super hard working, some super not hard working; some open to technology and others dead against it. 

I went for a semester and found my self taking notes on YouTube videos about the stock and RE market 90% of the time rather than listening to my professors.