http://www.hedgefundletters.com/are-hedge-funds-be...How Wall Street Has Turned Housing Into a Dangerous Get-Rich-Quick Scheme—Againhttp://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/11/wall-street-buying-foreclosed-homesTracking the Hedge Fund Big Dogs: Buying from the MLShttp://www.biggerpockets.com/renewsblog/2013/09/14/tracking-hedge-fund-big-dogs-buying-mls/Hedge funds crowd first-time buyers out of housing markethttp://www.marketplace.org/topics/economy/hedge-funds-crowd-first-time-buyers-out-housing-marketI can fill 20 pages of articles like this but in the end it doesnt matter.

Airfare and hotel costs are a drop in the bucket in the grand scheme of things.

@Bob Bowling @Manch Hon and in many cases keep your day job so you can keep saving and building up cash to invest with.I know the mid west looks appealing with the no money down scheme's or little down.. but there are land mines most West coast investors just don't or can't fathom.. just like LA is not Norcal things are different and in the mid west they are really different.

All kinds of rumors going around in the RE world that many of them were money laundering schemes and even though not completed, were fully rented out!

I think I just laid out a real estate investment pyramid scheme.

I know this is a small accomplishment in the big scheme of things but sometimes it feels unreal to me.

Her and I settled on a purchase price of 105k and she agreed to take $1800 for her services, but when the contract was sent to me to sign she had $3000 on the deal. we went back in forth about her scheming, till the owner call me and said take the deal NOW!

In the case of the United States, booms and busts are perfunctory to living under a debt based fiat currency system that some may refer to as a Ponzi scheme.  

Down the road one can certainly diversify across strategies and asset classes but from my own experience in the beginning focus is key.Real estate is not a get rich quick scheme, and it will take some time to build that income stream.

There's a difference between scheming and developing a strategy.