I can stomach being stuck in a deal for many years with no cash flow and pathetic returns, but I can't stomach losing all my money due to optimistic underwriting.My current thought is to only enter deals that have longer term loans in place and would be able to hold for a long time if necessary without bank calls, do business with syndicators that rode out 2008 with stellar track records, only do deals that have some sort of value add component, and that have a "story" of how/why the deal is notably better than what an average market deal would be.

He lays out a wealth plan that I thought sounded a bit ‘optimistic’.His plan showed that after 15 years, you could have $27 million in equity if you started with only a $20k investment.

If they feel optimistic, they will venture forth and spend money, which will greatly speed up recovery.  

The suburbs seem stable.Am I being too optimistic here? 

@Nathan Whitson@mirch@Mitch Davidson@Nathan WhitsonSo, I live in the same camp as Mitch (perhaps also much too optimistically) but I think we are seeing a correction and yet buyers are still buying.

Mary's to be so optimistic.

@Jason ThompsonI am not a syndicator I just now a lot of them that used bridge debt and ran very optimistic numbers.

I'm all for being optimistic and tackling bigger problems.

I'm not very optimistic about my wifes step father living until next year, giving us enough time to save for a down payment though. 

I am just about ready to find my first property, and this conversation makes me feel optimistic that Louisville is a great area to invest, but also somewhat pessimistic that there are no "good" deals left in my range.   ($80-120K).