I am not in agreement with the look at identical properties.

Let them  mature and re-evaluate what's the best course of capital. 

It's one of the few places I am willing to read politics threads for instance because generally the maturity level is high enough to learn something.Our education system starts off teaching this behavior if you do __X__ (e.g answer the math problems correctly) you will get __Y__. 

Yet another reason, (albeit not in the top three) why all rental property should be in an LLC with a wife or child as a partner (even .1%) so as to file the Form 1065.Number 1 is liability protection, Number 2 is privacy, Number 3 is ease of transfer for estate planning, Number 4 is possible sale of the LLC to conceal sales price (also called drop and swap), Number 5 is having a single entity for financial reporting, Number 6 is brand identity.

Working with someone to refi a MF property a month ago and they wanted to wait (not sure why as they are coming up on maturity) - but they thought they had other options, could have gotten a loan at 7.5% now taht same bridge loan is 8.25%.

Our original fix and flip loan matured and actually went into default, we refinaced out right before they forclosed 

So we are now facing a loan reset in a few weeks where it will be based on the 5 year continuous maturity note rate from the Fed, plus a margin of 2.25%.  

If you know for sure they stole someone's identity, you could also let the police know.

So, my question is; in GENERAL, has the STR industry matured to the point where any excess return is really just a return for being in a business rather than just a real estate investment?

You will likely see more investors with maturing debt, needing a temporary fix or permanent financing.