I focused on getting a degree, learning job skills, getting and building a career, saving my money, and bam when the housing market crashed in 2008, I bought a paid in cash house here with my savings even though I had to pay all my own bills since I was 18 (rent, car, etc.).

Today my neighbor/tenant crashed into the wrought iron fence that fences off the property, warping the metal and causing a few problems.

For instance, during the crash of 2007/2008, national real estate prices dropped 19% and took 6 years to get back to the level they were at at the tip-top of the market.

We just hit bad timing because of the 07-08 crash. 

A lot of these newer carriers hit the market with low premiums, they then have very little capital to pay claims when catastrophy hits and they end up crashing and burning or renewing at 200% the first year. 

Don't listen to social media RE gurus who say you can buy RE "without using any of your own money and buy in inexpensive locations"  Listen to the experienced investors on BP who have been through full estate cycles including 2008 and market crashes.

Or lets their meth-head friend crash for the night and their pimp comes by and they end up stabbing each other.No, SFHs don't make one lick of sense to buy as rentals in Houston right now. 

I'd suggest reading up on the topic on the forums, where you'll find many examples of inexperienced investors crashing and burning hard trying to do OOS REI...the story is usually the same--they had no experience with REI, they couldn't find any cashflowing properties locally, but they saw that properties in other states (often the Midwest) cashflowed well on paper.

And I believe we may be over leveraged with something like 7 300k+ homes where a few possible vacancies and/or large unexpected payments could make it all come crashing down.

The debt market crash was one of the major factors in the Great Recession.