Desire to establish reliable cash flow stream.

As your rental portfolio grows you should look into getting a property manager so that you won't be constantly trading your time for money

I'm a few books deep into real estate, analyzing properties, and constantly on the search but have yet to pull the trigger yet. 

If I hadn't constantly texted them, how long would they have gone before checking on the repair?

Real estate is best thought of as a "get rich slow" game, so try and keep a few rentals for yourself - building income streams in your 20s gives you a huge advantage.

It constantly loses value with inflation.

This helps create multiple streams of income and it is a great form of passive investing. 

We are constantly evaluating value-add propositions for our clients who are considering adding a property to their portfolio.

And another issue, these will be commercial loans, with similar debt coverage ratios required and showing the ability to manage/service, so that will be a hill to climb for most small investors.Accounts receivable financing is another issue and a specialized arena, some banks do and there are financing companies that deal exclusively in A/R, leases and other annuity or cash flows, such as mineral rights and royalties.Any time there is a stream of cash from any credit worthy source, there will be a present value and a market for investing in or based on that stream.

Cash buyers, financing buyers, the constant is buyers!