I for one own mobile home parks and find they are a great way to offer home ownership to people that otherwise may rely on a Section 8 voucher.All proactive government solutions like public housing and S-8 are ridiculous to discuss until we do away with the exclusionary zoning that drives up housing costs where people want to live and give the free market a chance to build us a way out of our housing crisis.

The banking crisis hit about the same time as the real estate down turn.

I've been renting in Arlington and McLean for almost five years now and couldn't find a good investment even during the foreclosure crisis.

So this is more like European crisis now rather than US financial crisis. 

While NYC rents hardly EVER go down and only for a short period of time during extreme crisis, even in severe economic strife, you need to understand that other Investment properties outside of Major Metro areas may not fair as well.

That's up to the Investor as Risk Tolerance is all individual.In fact, I know people who would not Invest in a CD but put their money in their Mattress because they fear a Bank Run like what happened in Greece over the Financial Crisis.

It's not a real financial crisis unless you have peeling paint everywhere.

If you apply this approach you would not have had a problem with the real estate bubble, or the financial bubble, or any of the recent crisis.

We currently have 1 rental with decent return that has been rented for (5) years with 2 months total in vacancy.Right now Anchorage is undergoing many changes in terms of the oil jobs, state budget crisis and some increased crime.

Also @Ned Carey  I wasn't in the game in Baltimore at the time but can you share some experiences/examples of some of those areas that ran up pre crisis that got hit particularly hard and have not yet recovered and what your understanding is as to why they did not recover.