High quality assets survive the best during hard times.

They can survive at least a year without any food.

While I do have silver and gold in units small enough to do small transactions, I think the best bet is to diversify between a myriad of investments.Man has survived for thousands of years as "hunters and gatherer's" and it is only the last 200-300 years, the industrial revolution, that we have become reliant on so much technology.

Sure the late 80s caused a little pain, but I survived to live another day.

As to the closing of HUD, will Section 8 survive or will funding be cut and adminstration be abolished.

There are many pitfalls as have been mentioned.Another thing to check is the county or city it is located in has a statute on the books where utilities survive the foreclosure process.I my state of Georgia some counties have it where water liens and garbage and waste survive foreclosure and will not be wiped out.Some of these lien amounts are substantial at over 100k.Also remember that property taxes survive foreclosure as well.Those liens would be superior to yours.The IRS has a legal claim to property they are owed taxes on and you have to wait 120 days afterword for their lien interest to expire.So if there is a lien from the IRS do not do any work to the property until there interest expires as they only have to compensate you for the value at foreclosure and costs and not improvements since that time to redeem the property.You would need to approach the owner in advance and see if the want to even own the property.If they are very adament about fighting to the end you might want to look at other notes unless there is tremendous upside.They might however just want a 1099 and the current lien holder isn't cooperating.

I know it sounds like sacrilege, but we all lived without cellphones 10 years ago and somehow we all survived.4.

If you have an established business which rely on line of credit to survive (buying materials, providing maintenance, etc) then you can easily loose your business should something goes wrong with your real estate investment.

He had never mentioned his kids to me, given me their contact info, given them as emergency contacts, etc.When the surviving renter called to tell me of his passing she told me that she had had to change the locks and call the police to keep his kids out of the home due to conflicts, and have the police there when giving the kids his personal property.

The country survived the industrial revolution and came out stronger than before.If big government got out of the way and allowed the free market capitalist system to prevail and work, and remove regulations for people to prosper in liberty, the country could change course, however capitalism is under constant attack.