I am investor first and an agent second. I do very well in the investment market and see people that get in over their head every day. The market over the last 5 years has been forgiving to investors because of the rising values. If you made a mistake it didnt matter because the home was going to worth 10k more in a week. This is not today and wont be again. If you are just sticking your feet in the water with no intentions on swimming, get out of the water. Investing takes a ton of self educating and you should be willing to lose initially in order to win in the long haul. FLIP THIS HOUSE TV and other shows will bring amatures into the game and cause people to lose their shirts. I am not trying to discourage anyone, but I am trying to say that you make sure you know what you are doing before you do it. This market is still strong for investors that know what they are doing.

ian.p.walsh@gmail.com

I think the newer show Property Ladder is much more realistic show than Flip and if people do their homework they will really think hard before jumping in.

Amen!

Yup, its a great time to buy - IF you know what you are doing.

It's always a great time to buy if you've done the calculations right with a very low margin of error. I believe in "making a profit, before going into an investment". In today's market, it is really easy to make a profit if you already have liquidity. Other than that, with rising rates and guideline changes, the holding costs may damper the wallet.

Those of us who are old enough to have been around during the *last* round of foreclosures remember when investors wanted to pick them up at 80% or less of FMV.

This time around, it's more like 50-60%.

As for whether it will come back up, acourse it will. It's always a cycle. The depth & length vary but not the cyclic nature of real estate.

And fortunately people will always want to live in SoCal.

Everyone has to start somewhere. As a "noob" to the real estate investment world ,I am taking the cautious approach before I jump in. T.V. shows are entertainment to me,nothing more. They take the absolute best situations and turn them into t.v.

Well,lets hear some words of for people like myself that want to be self sufficient in investing but are looking to do more than "get their feet wet".

Re Investing is a great thing, with the right amount of homework and a little luck, most people are trying to grab nickels from in front of a steam roller