I turned down a five year lock and then actually used the liquidity twice
Got offered an allocation in a private open-ended real estate fund. 100k minimum, quarterly redemption with gate language that let them suspend, marks published quarterly by the manager's appraiser. Reasonable people are in it and I don't think it's a bad product.
I put 85k into listed REITs instead, at what the research shops I follow were calling a meaningful discount to underlying asset value.
13 months later: 2,900 in dividends, price return 5.1 percent, and I used the liquidity twice. Once to raise 12k in two days for a family cash need that I could not have predicted and would have had to solve with a credit line otherwise. Once to move 9k out of the broad index into healthcare after it fell harder than the rest of the sleeve for reasons I could argue with.
The part that nearly got me was month three. The sleeve was down about 9 percent and the private fund posted a smooth quarterly gain. It looked like I'd made a stupid choice. What I had to keep telling myself is that the private mark was an appraisal on a lag and mine was a live price, so the comparison was never apples to apples in either direction.
What I'd keep: writing down before I bought that the liquidity was part of what I was paying for, and that using it was allowed. Otherwise I'd have treated every sale as a failure of conviction.