., great commentary.With all this discussion of wages, home prices, interest rates, and qualification, I have to refer back to one of my favorite pieces of data that I haven't been updating lately: The Housing Affordability Index!

It seems the most reliable one is to Get Google to Delist the Report from its Index.  

The color shows the Market Health Index (Green - 10; Red - 1), and the size of the circle shows the Market Price To Rent ratio.  

I live in a very rural area north of Asheville, NC which does not have much going on as far as real estate movement so I’m looking at other areas.Asheville is hot right now and has set record sales/prices for 2015.This has put the little inventory that is available out of my price range.Asheville would be my long term goal.According to Zillow (which I’m not sure how accurate it is) market health index for Asheville is 9.4/10.Other areas I’m considering are Greenville, SC (market health index 7.8/10 ) and Johnson City, TN (index of 5.9/10), both with more inventory in my price range.Asheville is 35 minutes from my house, Greenville 2 hours, and Johnson City 1 hour.I have made contact with a realtor in the Greenville area and that area really looks like it has potential.I am a Nurse and my wife is a Physical Therapist so we have W2 income and would not need to live off flipping.I also have 3 days off a week to manage rehabs, plus downtime at work for research/studying markets.

If you put 40k into some no load index funds you can only lose 40k. 

Why would you want to invest in private equity versus a publicly traded stock or index fund?

If I invest in the S&P index fund, I set it and forget it.  

You would have been better off investing in Roth IRA's and getting an average of 11% on the S&P 500 index fund.

Are you looking for returning your initial $20K or are you looking for a % return on the investment like a index fund you purchased for $20K giving you 6% return year after year. most of us i think are looking for the asset to "throw off cash" meaning getting the % return on the initial investment, hoping there is market appreciation and later selling or owner financing the house out when you are done with it to get the initial investment back out, like selling the index fund after the value has increased, and gave you a return. 

I have a retirement account filled with Vanguard index funds, and now I want to find an investment that does not correlate with the market.