The area seems to be artificially inflated right now, and the home prices vs. rental income just do not seem to work. 

We have some money available for down payments and are looking to enter this market intelligently.

@Conor Funk  We look forward to having another determined and intelligent builder heading our way!

Retirement is for people that hate their jobs and have this artificial date 30 years from now that they can leave the job they hate. 

It's because some children are exposed to money early, regularly, and intelligently (like yours) and some aren't (probably 99% of the rest of the country).Want to know why your kids will be in the 1% one day (or have a better chance than almost everyone else)?  

@Eli Sunderland,Here's what you need to remember about the crash and the housing market before and after it ...Leading up to the crash, virtually unlimited access to lending created an artificially high demand which drove prices skyward, even in the face of the highly speculative development and home building.In the crash, some 80% of home builders went under.

You can't show a phone call to a lawyer to aid in intelligent decision making. 

Back then, unscrupulous lenders stimulated housing demand artificially by making lending unrealistically over-available leading to rise in home prices well beyond their actual value. 

I honestly have no idea how to intelligently work these.

Emotional maturity (connected closely to emotional intelligence) enables us to make better decisions or, in the case of a pandemic, respond to events in a more constructive way.