Dan ,During the market crash of late 2008 and early 2009 was the time I bought directly from the banks.

So as you all know in 08'-09' the market crashed, so that plan went out the window.

First of all, the markets that we're investing in hasn't fully recovered from the housing crash, and homes can be bought for significant discounts to their replacement cost.

Stepdad was a realtor and his brother was/is a builder in southern Oregon before the crash.

First of all, the markets that we're investing in hasn't fully recovered from the housing crash, and homes can be bought for significant discounts to their replacement cost.

Her parents have graciously allowed us to crash in their basement for as long as we need.

In the grand scheme of things, if it cash flows with only $20k put into it, and the market crashes, it's really not a big deal.  

._______________________________________- In the book Shift by Gary Keller of Keller Williams, published I think in 2009 just after the crash, he talked in chapter 10 called creative financing.I’ll paraphrase:Real estate agents to do well have to work much harder to get a listing appointment, because credit is now very difficult.If real estate agents learned this business and were trained from 2002 to 2008,-when credit was terribly easy,-liar loans were available,-100% of value with no money down,then they didn’t need to learn how to do creative financing.Like Gary Keller, I started in real estate in the early 80s when interest rates were well over 10% for mortgages.I do a lot of wraparound mortgages and contract for deed purchases, because getting financing was almost impossible.The point of the creative financing chapter is this:As an agent, you need to be very creative in this credit strangled market.As a real estate investor, you need to make money with every lead.So let’s talk about an example:__________a pretty house quiet street, owes 95,000, comps come in at 100The days are gone when you can overprice the house and do a price reduction.The $100K house will sit there for months and months if it’s overpriced.If you really care about the seller having some success about fixing their house problem, you need to talk about selling on terms and selling on cash.

Well as you know the crash happened and having partners was not a good idea at that time.

Keep your fingers crossed for some cold storms mixed in ;) Now for the waves that is another story...this is when you see 10 footers crashing on some beach houses roofs.