As your portfolio grows, your risk will diminish because the chance of an anomaly (like a 100% vacancy rate) affecting you greatly decreases.

I honestly feel that Short Sales will diminish throughout this year and be a thing of the past by mid 2009...there will be all kind of ways to keep people in their homes and crooked refinances offered to avoid short sales after Bailout go through, watch

However, just to play devil's advocate a little further on this - does an asset increase or diminish your capacity to acquire more assets.

However, as your portfolio grows, the risk diminishes because the cash flow from your properties will cover any big expenses that come up (assuming of course that you bought properly and have calculated your cash flow using real world operating expenses).

So putting it another way, try not to pass the point of diminishing returns.

Thing is, there seems to be diminishing returns as to how much money you save the more money you put in per month.

This hearsay style of investing has (thankfully) diminished since the internet bubble burst around 2001, but this is still a common way to invest.

Martin - yeah, that's our backup scenario.Once we expect to receive something the level of perceived value diminishes.

This is largely due to extreme stagnation at my job and a diminishing income.

If the rate isn't locked for 7 to 10 years then I do not count it for that length of time.You will also have to factor in resale costs or refi costs or diminished returns from taking on a cash partner to retire the debt when it comes due.From my experience really small local banks will look at problem properties or problem areas to possibly give a loan.