Thread drift alert, but I’ll keep it going. Friend of mine had a tenant die in one of the properties. Body wasn’t discovered for 2-3 weeks. For any of you with experience in the first responder world, you’ll know how utterly horrid and catastrophic that level of decomp can be.

The entire apartment had to be gutted.

Now there’s a battle between the insurance company and the individual’s estate. Really ugly.

I’m all for passive income, but when things go south, the headaches of being a landlord can be absolutely enormous.

Keeping in the thread drift: What about Real Estate Investment Trusts? Are they an alternative? What do you give up?

Sure, it removes the uncertainty and hassle of being a landlord.

But I'd avoid office-space commercial real estate like the plague right now, except perhaps in the very hottest markets. While the telework/zoom thing is overblown, there will certainly be SOME post-covid shift to permanant telework... even a single-digit shift (combined with recession) would create a glut of office spaces, and it would take longer than usual for that to correct. In the meantime, prices would likely plummet.