Comparing Apples and Oranges -Syndications vs. SFR/Duplex

[Cj Powderhorn]

Hi! I know some of you are calculator and spreadsheet gurus! Has anyone developed or have a comparison tool that they use for taking a set amount ($100K) and looking at the benefits of each. I assume I'd use a 5-7 year term. Right now I primarily invest in the Memphis area and have had great cash flow but not so much appreciation so I wouldn't factor that into the equation. Thanks very much for any suggestions or ideas. I saw some posts covering Syndications vs JV vs REITs and SF vs MF but I didn't see anyone asking this! Thanks! :)

[Bryan Hancock]

At the core all investments are just a series of cash flows with each needing some form of risk adjustment via a discount factor.  That's how you'd do an apples-to-apples comparison using various metrics.  No one metric captures everything and all are subject to some sort of bias or problem.  All complicated problems need to be evaluated from a number of points of view to triangulate what is best.  

Imputing your time into any analysis and how active or passive you want to be is a big piece of the puzzle as is your horizon and risk tolerance for this investment for this part of your overall portfolio subject to the needs for the distributions.