But what is the actual cause that shifts the momentum toward gentrification?

You need to look at what things (demographic shifts, income shifts, industry trends, etc) will drive certain areas up and down.

As long as you are not partnered with a retirement plan.Rather than shifting the income from you to your wife, you should just go the route I suggested.If you have further questions don't hesitate to ask.

Maybe you could shift some of your assets to the area your doing business in for a short period of time.

I do have $ in stocks/funds but now I am wondering whether that money would have done better in real estate.Just wondering people think there will be a big shift out of the markets.

This shifts incentive for the realtors within LS from providing good service and bagging repeat business to just be agressive in tagging properties.This is in stark contrast to the vendors who are not allowed to tag properties and thus always have an incentive to provide good service and gain repeat business.Remember you have already paid $10k, so you are going to work with the realtors within LS rather than external realtors.- LS uses a catch phrase "Real Estate is Easy, People are difficult" implying that RE is easy, you just need to be able to deal with various temperaments of various people involved in the sealing of a deal.

@Mike Hurney,To make the @ work, do the following:Hold down the shift key and type the @?

But...that was a different time, assisted by an unprecedented economic shift.

You are correct that anything over 4 units is generally considered a commercial property which will shift you to the commercial lending side.

Our economy has shifted more and more toward service jobs.