I prefer self discipline and saving.

This takes discipline and you must give up a lot of your impulse spending to get where you want to go.

This discipline can no longer be considered a business development function or a ‘lost leader’ that can be amortized later into future building design opportunities.

One way to regularly use the card in a disciplined fashion is to designate it as a "Gas only or Groceries only" card.

Lack of parenting, no ability to remove bad or lazy teachers due to tenure and union fights, lack of student discipline, little requirement for student performance, etc.

(This is a valuable thing, though, considering how many people have difficulty with financial discipline.)Kevin Yeats, your observation about the higher transaction costs of homes compared to stocks is valid.

You can definately do this if you are determined, learn everything you can, work hard, be patient, disciplined, etc.You could work your way from bird-dogging to wholesaling to a couple of low-end flips to your first buy and hold, etc.

By the way, if you become a highly paid real estate professional for a decade or so...you could be the guy buying turnkey rental property from a college kid and using that to build your investment portfolio while you experience no drop in your lifestyle from a decent corporate gig as long as you're disciplined with your money.

It's not always in the best interest of a single person with a good education/job/financial discipline to get a house because he/she has not found their spouse yet/finished college, etc and buying a house could mean having to sell it again two years down the road if they get married or land a great job in another state.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children.