I still feel the US economy and related aspects have a lot of bad mojo to purge and I want to be prepared for job loss, currency collapse, etc....Joshua Dorkin - if a profile picture is is what you want, a profile picture is what you get...but consider yourself warned.Looking forward to working with you all.PJ

We seem to be following Japans post credit bubble collapse that started there 20 years ago.

Mike Rubin,I doubt that we will ever see the South Florida Real Estate Market collapse, like it did in 2008-09-10.A recent article in the Sun-Sentinel was about Builders coming back into the Southeast Florida Market.Here is a link to that article:http://articles.sun-sentinel.com/2013-03-25/business/fl-davie-builder-20130325_1_demands-rise-townhomes-and-condominiums-parkland-golfRaymond

I got myself squared away financially around ’04, and did earn a real estate license in Georgia in 2006, but then had to move back to California in 2007, just as the market began to collapse.

Below are some pictures post demo.Second Floor - fireplace in rough shape but the brick overall isn't badFirst Floor - bad lighting, but brick also in pretty good shapeThird FloorSecond Floor - prior to ripping out the header to expose the full window frameStaircaseFacade - Part of Mansard collapsed, but not a big deal as we are replacing this anyways.

Read hereFollowing last year's realization that mortgage origination as a product line is effectively dead (which has forced such origination dependent banks as Wells Fargo to return to subprime lending in hopes of keeping the revenue stream alive, knowing full well how it all ends), and that only investors and "all cash" buyers are keeping the myth of the housing recovery alive on their shoulders, banks fired tens of thousands of workers in the mortgage business hoping to stem the bottom line bleeding from the collapse in revenues.

Another thing to consider, (and maybe someone else can chime in on this) I've heard that Philly has become a NIGHTMARE for investors ever since that building collapsed a while back.At my local investor group people were telling me permits are damn near impossible to get anymore and you need architects and engineers to even get anything approved.That could get costly very very quickly.

This would seriously harm you if you were leveraged.Again if you really consider this (hyper-inflation and resulting complete breakdown of society) to be an eminent threat, you should be investing in some land to "bug-out" to and learning how to survive the collapse of civilization as we know it.As a rule, inflation makes the rich richer and the poor poorer and decimates the middle class.

No different than the 'junk-bonds' of the 1980's.Banks should have been forced to keep their loans in house - not been able to sell them - and the mortgage bubble and collapse could not have occurred.

This particular neighborhood was very well kept up and  had high property values.Anyway I found a house where a tree had fell over the top of the house and collapsed the roof!