We dont have a student loan crisis....we have a personal finance, spending, and consumerism crisis.

The $140k Investment in the year 2000 did contribute towards other investments.However there were other contributing factors, especially by partnering up with a friend and at the time, which was before the Financial Crisis, you were able to get Mortgages just by breathing.So I breathed a lot!

Even during the '08 crisis, rents were pretty strong. 

Hi John - this came to me this morning from my Property Manager and I think its all pretty accurate:Instead, I want to look past this crisis and offer some encouragement for the future.

(We just have to be on the same page that inspectors are paid to find problems and there is no such thing as a no-findings inspection...hairline cracks in a 50 yr old foundation or a basement that gets wet every Spring is not a crisis in the rental world)Get an appraisal if financing is a concern...every property in Toledo suffers from appraisal discount in my opinion especially in cash-out refi situations, the less time between purchase and refi the lower that number comes back.

my questions are these:sf bay cities like san jose often have better deals (lower GRM, good economy, good transit for the next gas crisis) than marin county. it's a 2.5 hour round trip drive there, tho' and i DON'T know local trademen like i do here. aside from having to find a property manager (which i gather may be tough) what are the upsides and downsides?

College tuition cancellation- These are far larger figures than the home loan crisis.

Education for stupid was the message.Several other calls went on.Later example I got a crisis call. 

The property usually needs to meet a DSCR covenant of 1.2 or 1.25.Community banks kept investors growth alive during the financial crisis as all of the non confirming exotic loan products provided by institutional lenders (typically backed by hedge funds) were pulled off the shelf after the collapse.Now as things have become more normal, non confirming (not fannie freddie) loan products have begun to trickle back into the market place as institutional capital has developed a thirst for yield backed by hard assets like real estate.These DSCR loans you have heard buzzing about are not agency backed products so therefore there is not the hard and fast rules that you see with conventional.

@Mike Klarman Oh OK, thank you, so I'm guessing it changed recently probably due to the economic crisis perhaps?