On a per user basis, it was cheaper than salesforce, and works much better than what we had before, sugarcrm.Originally posted by Peter Giardini:Unless you are planning on building a big database of potential customers that you want to communicate with routinely and convince them to buy something from you.... it is probably gross overkill for a real estate investor.We currently have what I would consider a very healthy and targeted database that we would like to better segment and communicate with.

Likewise if you walk into a home for sale with potential (nice ''floor plan'', cabinets, ect) but otherwise 'trashed' you know you can clean it up cheap and make a healthy profit.

I believe that perspective facilitates healthy discussion.

You can be very successful and achieve healthy returns doing it, or you can lose your shirt.

Well, Chris, crime rate for one:http://www.escapehere.com/destination/10-worst-cities-to-visit-in-the-united-states/7/Texas still has great cash flows, healthy economy, excellent jobs outlook, and some potential for appreciation.

Also important are the new regulatory laws soon to be passed that can really help liven up the housing market and create a healthy investment climate.

Not healthy. 

I have always had 5k deductable on the 200 plus properties we have in inventory.for us the cost savings does not warrant the lower deducatable. kind of like having major medical insurance when your a healthy 25 year old. boarded houses are targest as you know.. and i suspect this insurance company realizes that they are getting to many 2 to 5k claims.. and want to limit that.

This is causing damage to my mental and physical health.  I

Or your building may have a "surprise" issue that costs you tens of thousands of dollars to fix (but hopefully one has healthy cash reserves to cover these issues when they pop up).Also, past performance itself is easier to see transparently with a rental property than with a publicly-traded company.Even as a CPA, sometimes when I read the financial statements and annual reports of publicly-traded companies, I'm left wondering what kind of tricks they're playing on the inside to make themselves look better than they really are.But with a property, the due diligence is a lot more straightforward.But of course all these advantages of property come at the cost of investing a significantly larger portion of your wealth into a single, illiquid asset than you would if you wanted to invest in a single, liquid stock.Anyway I rambled a bit there, but my personal philosophy is that both equities and real estate are incredible wealth-building tools, but similar to @Andrew Johnson I am much more "active" in real estate.