Gas prices and the industry have been volatile.

Maybe your cash investors had the cash invested and are waiting for the markets to recover.Either way, I would't panic after four days, especially in this volatile economic market.Peter

I understand that the market is volatile right now...but surely the housing market can't sink any lower than it already has.

It's tough to compare ratios with data from only the past 10 years due to volatility of the market, but here are the ratios from my limited data:Median Income/Median Housing Price in Sacramento2006: $66,875/$345k = 0.192011: $55,085/$138,750 = 0.402014: $60,015/$208k = 0.29I would believe that ratio continues to decrease as the median Sacramento home price is now $277k, meaning median household income would have to grow to $80k to hold the 0.29 ratio and I don't believe it has climbed that high.This is very basic analysis but continues to support a decline in housing affordability it would be nice to look at consistent data from the early 2000s and late 90s, tacking onto that mortgage rates were roughly double 2 decades ago.If we are at the high end of housing affordability what will the imminent rate hike do to the market?  

The market is fairly volatile right now and I am not sure when it is going to come back down.

Our investments are in a stable community that has not seen the volatility experienced by other parts of the country.

yes there are a few lenders out there that you can leverage for loans on these types of homes but generally i do not recommend or feel it is necessary to be as leveraged as that and in fact in this more "volatile" economy find myself ahead of the game with a lower LTV when if rents drop I can drop my asking price and still turn a profit where the folks clearing $100 a month end up in the negative each month in this scenario.I would differ with you in that I do not feel the 30k properties are the most challenging asset.  

Any volatility in the property would be dangerous if not disastrous to you.

Over that time frame the rental market can shift too, but there should be much less volatility than the sale side. 

For the writer of the put, the payoff is equal to the premium received by the buyer of the put if the asset price rises, but if the asset price falls below the strike price minus the premium, then the writer will lose money.The Straddle and Other Simultaneous OptionsWhile options can be used to generate returns based on an expectation that an asset’s price will move in a particular direction, they can also be used to generate returns based upon an expectation of whether an asset’s price will simply move at all, i.e. experience volatility.