They went belly up .  

Mr Sperber.You may look like a Goofball, but 4 years ago around this time, I saw your  "How to get your first million" in real estate.Those where the 15 minutes my life changed.I raise my glass of grape juice to you!

My scenario is different.I am the commercial real estate broker and owner of my company.So I have my listings and buyer clients I work with which brings in a certain amount and then I have my own properties I purchase as an investor myself.As a broker once you have your own investments bringing in income you can pick and choose who you want as clients on the real estate brokerage side.It's empowering at a listing when the seller knows you are not DESPERATE for a listing and you are in demand.They want to choose you because you get results and not because you agree with everything they say.What anyone needs to start is relative to income coming in and family and life demands.For instance if someone has racked up 80,000 in credit card debt on stupid stuff they have nobody to blame but themselves.In my state of Georgia 30,000 a year isn't that bad as cost of living is really low.In some other states 30,000 would just last a few months.So that is how I run my business as I explained above.I try to train agents to help them out but I find they don't have the "fire in their belly" to change their lives.With investing you have to have a "whatever it takes" mentality.

Cleveland seems to be the only Ohio city with the juice to compete with Detroit.

Is the juice worth the squeeze?

Not alot of juice in the deal but you made some good money.  

The desert safari is nice, but the belly dancers will almost certainly be Russians.

Generally in a crash interest rates go down to try and juice the economy.

I paid a plumber to fix some bellies in the sewage line, but it looks like all of the issues weren't fixed. 

These are obviously hypothetical numbers, but hopefully this helps get the creative juices flowing so you can think through what might be possible.