But the right guys with the right advantage can make a killing on this market because they know that the moat around their market is to deep for most mortals to cross.  

You might be a good bet, but things can happen to a mortal that don't with a bank!

Due to infant mortality, the necessary reproduction rate to replace the population is 2.08.

As people get older, they tend to want to pass on their life to others (this is likely part of our survival instinct being expressed as we begin to deal with our own inevitable mortality).

those margins are unheard of for the mortal man / builder developer. experience matters at ton.. 

There are a whole cadre of trap shooters who believe that using a semi automatic shotgun is a mortal sin despite the fact that many successful trapshooters would use nothing else.

@Kurt Gardner,It's pretty hard to get an appraiser to change their value once they have it because it means admitting they aren't perfect and are but mortals that can make mistakes.If this is a conventional offer, and you really want the place, I'd suggest ordering a new fresh appraisal through the lender, and ensure the appraiser has the engineer's report from the start.Once the new full appraisal is in, the lender internally will review both, and almost certainly find the new one where the appraiser had more information at her disposal from the start is the more credible of the two appraisals, and disregard the other one.

I want your child".See my little mortal friends... what most of you do.. is spend money and/or effort on marketing paying a fortune to reach "people".

@Kenneth Shelley  you can find them on paper... and they will be Hood type properties with very high owner mortality rate

Search the forums for lots of discussion on the topic.But, to be succinct, imagine buying a $1M fourplex that generates $8500/m in gross income.Now, make a spreadsheet to figure out what each of the following could be:"Cash Flow" - The amount of money left in your bank account at the end of the month (ignoring reserves and non-recurring expenses)Free Cash Flow - The amount of money you can count on at the end of the year (allocating $ for reserves, vacancy, etc)Total Return - The amount that your net worth will increase by holding the investment (includes free cash flow + gains from paying down mortgage principal)Total Projected Return - The amount that your net worth will increase, based on market projections (includes projected gains/losses due to housing market price changes, development/value add for the property, or changes in CAP rate).IRR - Wrap it all up for the expected length of time you'll hold the property to see how it'll perform overall and to compare it to properties in other locales.Now, adjust all those for your personal tax situation to figure out whether it's a good investment for you.For San Diego, you should be able to look at different situations to see why it makes sense for some people to invest there.I haven't yet seen broad agreement on exactly what to call each of those terms *for REI* - there's a difference in terms that real estate finance pros use vs. how us mere mortals speak.