If you’re evaluating rental properties based only on first-year cash flow, that’s a mistake.

Here’s what usually happens:

• The deal looks great on paper
• Tenants become unstable
• Rent growth stalls
• Inflation eats the cash flow
• The property underperforms long-term

Instead, you should be asking:

• Will rents grow faster than inflation?
• Will tenants stay long-term and pay rent on time?
• Can this property continue to perform during a recession?

I put the framework into a short guide I give new investors:

👉 Engineer’s Guide to Safe Real Estate Investing

https://fernwood.team/engineers-guide/

If you’re relying only on cash-flow spreadsheets or Zillow averages, this may save you an expensive lesson.