Perhaps RE in our market will follow stocks or they will show more resilience (which in my opinion it will).

Fortunately, the TX market in general has been pretty resilient against the cyclicality of the national RE market, so hopefully you won't have another repeat of your PA experience.  

I live in Plant City which is kind of far from the current BP meet up and will be equally as far from a St.

I'd be going with drought tolerant native plants if I were you.

@DJ ThompsonI currently do not invest IN Tampa but outside in the Brandon, Plant City, and Lakeland area, but yes South Tampa is a good area.  

The front flower beds have some standard bushes in them, or at least they would be standard if they did not have those wire Christmas reindeer planted in the middle of them (bush and ornament are now one).

I empathize with you on this subject and offer to you that time and your life experience serve you now and is a big advantage for you right now.Simply by having gone through many different joys and challenges speaks volumes about your resilience.  

But one thing I noticed among all top investors was the ability to be resilient-persistent.

When we pressed about what was so alarming, we were told our agreement mandated that the seller leave all plants, shrubs, trees, and landscaping in place, which apparently was ridiculous to that particular agent....even though this is boilerplate language and unless otherwise agreed, landscaping always is included.

@Julian Buick  FCI is just posting individuals notes they don't own them. they will service them.. you can make bids on them ( IE low ball them )its extremely simple on the west coast to find notes... remember our title plants are state of the art ,,, not like a lot of states in the mid west and east coast.. another words you can search the data bases that are duplicates of the court house with key strokes.. ( ie west coast title plants)  all I would have to do is call my title co customer service agent here in Oregon and tell them I want a copy of all recorded DT's that are not institutional..