From what little I've seen, it's very competitive and the discounts from FMV are very small, in the case of 2nds, these astronomical discounts from UPB leave NPN note buyer at nearly 100% of FMV.

The refi closing costs are pretty astronomical from the quoted bank, but more importantly, it wont buy you any real profit for the next 3.5 years.

If you wait to invest in the US you will pay astronomically higher prices than you would now.

From what I understand buy and hold here is next to impossible cause of astronomical taxes.  

Without money, credit, and a source of income, your probability of FAILURE in real estate investing is ASTRONOMICAL!

is there any one here or have you heard of any one who had a lawsuit at a rental property and the insurance somehow did not cover it and the tennant got some huge judgment against the property owner thus getting only a couple of the property owners homes rather than all of them,,, and this property owner said "whew " i sure am glad i had a LLC,,,,, the odds for this seem astronomical to me,,,,,,,,,, thanks !

I remember during the dot-com boom how the experts were saying that dot-com stocks with astronomical PE ratios were justified as we were in a new economy.

Sometimes this leads to astronomically high prices - if it doesn't sell at the high price point - the contract just expires, so the "seller" has ventured nothing and lost nothing.

@Adam Webb I think there is value in being just under market rent as mentioned above as long as you are not astronomically low.   

If you do poorly you make no money, if you do awesome, they raise the rent astronomically and take it all from you and you make nothing.