I personally don't mess around with landlording and loans any more.

Are you buying to house hack or rent out both sides.There are so many personal questions to answer, before you begin analyzing deals.Factors such as jobs, population, tenant laws, median income, affodability, crime, schools are all metrics to considerGood Luck!

I do wonder if Phoenix can sustain the growth.

@Jon DawesI personally prefer liquidity and flexibility and like you said so many variables which is why it's never clear-cut in personal finance.  

Another concern is the massive personal mortgage my father obtained in 2021.

B grade property walks are attended by my children to run around and tell me which bedrooms they would pick if it was their home.43605, 43608, 43609 are the popular zipcodes for bottom-budget value purchases...I manage a ton in these areas and my personal portfolio contained over 40 43608 properties at the peak. 20% of these properties will be crazy money earners, 20% will be astounding money pits, and 60% will fare average.I have evolved into the nicer 43612/43613 for my personal portfolio and find the properties earn consistently and far smoother than my 43608 houses. ($80k renting for $1200 vs $40k renting for $800 multiplied by the ratio above vs boring consistency of the nicer area) Oh and I have zero excitement for apartments.

Though even growing markets don't have value or rent growth in every property in the market, but the trend does present an opportunity to experience gains.

@Robert Trevino Right now in my market the cost to build is just so much greater than the cost of purchasing existing that unless you’re building a personal home no one is building.

This topic can be very specific to each person's situation. 

My personal rule of thumb for profile age is that if the profile was created before 2015-2016 (when the internet started to get a bit crazy with misinformation ahead of a certain presidential election), I'll generally proceed as long as they're interacting like a normal person (not a bot) and their profile looks otherwise legit.