I am not gonna go deep into the dark side of it since many of them are exposed in 2008 crisis or many of us had already experience so many cases. 

I've been doing research on Affordable Housing and in my opinion we are headed for a crisis.

But an above average, among top 10-15% of markets in america, annually once debt life cycle crisis is averted.California will become now secondary market for successful out of state people.

I think this is the best answer for our area and seems to me to be the best solution available for the affordable housing crisis in general.

Maybe my experience is atypical but every tenant that has said I am looking for long term has had a crisis and not fulfilled their terms. 

I was hoping with this current crisis maybe the market will turn into a buyer market, so far it is not the case here in SD.

Hi Victoria, no, after the financial crisis lenders have much stricter lending requirements and will have to show more income to qualify.

CreditCards.com: http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/lending-crisis-credit-score-cut-limits-1270.php"Even if you haven't been directly affected by subprime mortgage problems, your score could take a hit.

I will dig up the link showing the historical data.http://pages.stern.nyu.edu/~adamodar/New_Home_Page/datafile/histretSP.htmlhttp://observationsandnotes.blogspot.com/2009/04/best-worst-20-years-in-stock-market.htmlhttp://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2008/12/16/how-much-does-the-stock-market-actually-return/And one looking forward, which touches on why I believe the worst of our financial crisis is right around the corner...http://www.businessinsider.com/bob-dolls-10-year-return-forecast-2014-1Another huge advantage stocks have over real estate for the very small investor is you can easily dollar cost average.

@Grayson Gist if you're having a crisis of conscience over something, normally that means there is a right answer and a wrong answer.