does co-living actually beat a REIT once you price in the time you can't get back

i keep running this comparison and it keeps getting messier. vanguard's VNQ has returned roughly 8-9% annualized over the past decade, and i can buy or sell it in thirty seconds with zero phone calls. a co-living house near a regional hospital or university corridor supposedly throws off 10-14% cash on cash, but that spread is doing a lot of work before i trust it. the time cost is the part i can't figure out how to price. not management fees, which you can at least subtract, but the cognitive load that doesn't show up in any spreadsheet. the late texts, the turnover coordination, the month you spend tracking down a county permit issue. none of that hits the income statement. so when someone shows me a 12% return on a five bedroom in, say, akron or columbus, i genuinely don't know if i'm looking at a real premium or just an unpriced job. i've been sitting with REITs for a few years now, comfortable with the passivity, and i wonder how many people here ran the same comparison before they committed to actual ownership and what made them tip one way or the other.