and I stand by that. The reason is simple, no data set or no US historical returns figures shows that return. Unfortunately, your investments don't prove that because it's the same as someone saying "Equity markets make 20% annually. I have invested in Amazon, Apple, Facebook, Netflix, some random biotech stocks, etc" and using that subgroup as a basis for your return expectations opposed to using the overall market. It's just how one sets return expectations for yourself or others.

As I have stated in other financial threads, I used to trade FI at a large bank. I say this because there are a myriad of ways I could "show", someone how to get 20% a year, but an investor would be taking risk commensurate with that return profile. Leverage (in RE, FI, Equities, or any asset class) clearly does increase your returns, but it also increases your risk. This is especially true in RE as RE has what people call "hidden volatility " because as it's illiquid it doesn't obviously doesn't price MTM, but that doesn't mean the risk isn't there. As you increase your leverage, you're increasing that volatility.

I said in the previous thread, people (and you certainly have) can have amazing investments in RE. You clearly have done well (and i'm not trying to rain on anyone's parade), but that's not really the issue at hand because doing well is not a thematic real estate return view. It's the idea that you expressed (quote below) in this thread that people take as a general market view which is problematic.

"I have owned an unbelievable amount of real estate over decades and I don't believe any one of those was much less than 20% annual increase and if I average all of them together, with flips, great deals etc., it would be significantly more."

Blackstone is one of the largest RE owners in the US and they aren't using the 20% return assumption. You may (or do) have been performing that well, it just doesn't mean that those are the returns people should expect.