From my understanding, at the start of the lost decades, the Japanese were badly burned by property losses and passed their skepticism to their children.

@Douglass Belt Hartford is not a player in the small contractor space (sales less than $10M). 

The bigger players have started to turn their sights on alternative asset classes in a move to further mitigate risk as they begin to prepare for a market correction.

With large apartment buildings there are very few major players and putting out low ball offers will ruin your reputation as a serious broker.

I hope you're right, but there is no leverage or stock sales factored into that billion, and Zillow isn't the only player, there are several other corporate flippers.

Hey @Matthew Tierney,Hard money is definitely a good way to leverage your cash to be able to do more deals, you just want to make sure you’ve got all your key players in place so you don’t waste time with the rehab because the interest rates and points can eat away at your budget.

As you said, lack of jobs; therefore, lack of growth and demand will stay flat, even if someone overbuilds the market.I prefer to invest in areas where solid growth is likely so that demand will stay strong even as other players enter the market. 

That will allow him to leverage the skills he already has in construction management, learn the business that you want to build and to be exposed to players in the space that you want to be in.

What I am seeing  on the ground is many big players investing in Detroit, the worm has turned. 

Find out who the key players are who do business in the mobile home investing space.