Anyone ever get into real estate investment?

[LilKim]

And have much luck or success? From everything I've seen it's entirely regionally dependent, i.e. if these no-downpayment techniques are going to work at all you've got to be very much in a buyer's market. Where I am in California, any time a house goes on the market the seller seems to get like 40 offers and ends up selling for more than he listed it for. But I hear (vaguely) that Ohio, Florida, and Illinois are better.

[fishnfla]

1. "They " say...

the housing market is a bubble that is about to burst, like the over valued tech market did. Yes, there are plenty of stories like you are hearing, which lends me to believe we are behind the curve for the trend.

That having been said, real estate is always a good investment in that it does not lose money, holds value. I myself am in the process of buying some land in Northern Wisconsin as a heirloom investment....

[DancingBear]

2. Yes - for many years

We owned rental properties in Ohio, Connecticut and New Hampshire.

In order for 'creative financing' techniques to work, you need a very savvy real estate person who is also an investor. We had them.You also need (preferably) high interest rates to keep away the 'conventional' buyer - you don't have that today.

I'd run from no-down contracts in this market - the mortgage would never get covered by rental income (no one is renting, they are all buying due to low interest rates) and you'd lose your shirt.

The only exception would be if you had the talent to buy/flip distressed (i.e. run-down) properties, but few people do.

And yes, I knew (and still know) all the ways to buy no-down, cash back, deferred maintenance clauses, "hidden" second and third mortgages on other properties, etc. Some of it works - most of it doesn't.

P.S. The stories of people walking away with "money in their pocket" after buying are horse shit. Even if you get it (and I did, many times) it's almost always used to defer negative cash flow. It's NEVER play money.