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Strategies & Market Trends : The Residential Real Estate Crash Index -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Doughboy who wrote (67988)	12/5/2006 7:01:18 AM
From: Tradelite	Respond to of 306849

<<I see prices stagnating for 3-5 years.>> I agree. And this stagnation has occurred several times during the three decades that I've owned my own DC-area property. Fortunately, I was too busy and needed the property too much to care during those years, and now have equity in an amount large enough to not care. The classic example of price stagnation is a bunch of residential building lots I inherited from relatives who were "sold" on this land during the speculative oil-boom in Texas during the 1970s. These large parcels of land tied up all kinds of time working with brokers down there to get it sold during the 1990s, including one deal owner-financed by me. The only real profit that came out of SOME of that land was the sale of timber during the 1980s. I found myself receiving offers from multiple timber-buying firms and readily sold to them. Each sale of timber amounted to more than the original buyer paid for the land. The eventual price I got for the land was approximately the same as the original owner paid. A real lousy investment for the original owner....and a long-lasting telephone/computer/paperwork/tax nightmare for me who couldn't have cared less about that land. And what I said above doesn't even include the REAL nightmare of a syndicated commercial real estate investment that I inherited.....think two decades of failed deals in which buyers defaulted, syndicate buyers pulled out and left their shares to the rest of us still holding the bag for payments, and the nightmare of accountants and lawyers handling the fallout each year. Never buy real estate with a bunch of partners, especially when a commercial broker comes around to tell you what a great deal it will be--especially if it happens to be anywhere near Houston, TX. Houston may be a fine place to live and invest, but I'm NOT interested! <<gg>>