If You Could, What Would You Do Differently?

[Francois Acosta]

hi everyone, i'm new to rei and want to gather knowledge for the future; since i'm in college and work part-time i won't pull the trigger until a few years. i've been learning the vocab, market data, hearing the BP podcasts and i attended my first local re meet up yesterday. i want to get a better understanding, what would you do if you were  or are twenty-one and wanted to invest in re; would you rent and invest or buy a primary residence first...where would you go from there? i know, the data will change, but just general opinions and views from people who've been doing this. thanks very much 

[Jay Hinrichs]

well hindsight is 20/20  one of our BP members just sent me an article on a 9sq ft lot in Palo alto selling for 5 million.. well in the 80s I owned two lots in Palo alto.

should never have sold.. and should have bought bay area property and never sold...  but flip side is when I did sell i made big tax free money each time as they were my primary residences.. so not all bad... but man.

also when I first got into real estate sales in 1975 I could have bought McQuen condo's in San Jose for 5 to 7k a door... they rented in those days for 250 a door and i could have bought them FHA with 500.00 down.. they are now worth at least 500K each i suspect.. I knew one investor who bought 80 of them..

thats my if i could do it all over lament