I was given the idea of selling the home to a trusted friend or relative, for a temporary period of say two years with the idea of buying the home back once our credit and financial situation is better.

Except that I couldn't do that on the existing lot, which would have meant buying an adjoining lot (that made it "iffy") except by taking that small lot it would have greatly decreased the value of the lots adjoining it.

Hard money being a temporary solution.As you implied a completely cash business RE investing is also a bad ideas.

Those are great, but are they renovations that will decrease your operating expenses?

As usage drops, prices will drop.There are several (VIABLE) ways to decrease our usage of oil:1: drive less2. drive smarter, smaller, more efficient vehicles3. develop alternate fuels, not viable short term, maybe 20 years out4. develop new technologies, maybe, maybe not, I think once our smart brains start working on this we may see big changes5. drive smarter, YOURSELF.

The holiday shopping,GDP decrease,energy costs, dollar strenght has all been down for a while.

Well, taxes actually ended up reverting back to the previous years rate and are supposed to be decreasing.

This really only increases the rents and decreases the vacancies, since nobody wants to buy, but everyone is looking to rent.It is still impossible to find a cash-flow property here unless you put a considerable amount of money down, and then your ROI goes to crap.

I know that the areas that I do appraisals in that were increasing at an extremely rapid rate a few years ago are starting to stall and even decrease in value.

Too much debt will decrease credit score.Baby steps.