The only upside I an possibly see is if we get hyper-inflation and it drives rents way up.

Front Page headline article "Cities see rise in rental homes".

Our salaries have gone backwards instead of forwards with the rise in cost of insurance benefits.

It is very interesting to see the strong rise in gold and huge drop in RE.

Recently a pre sale building in the downtown core (premium, high rise, luxury building that won't be completed until 2019) sold out in a week (after foreign buyer tax was implemented) and some of those units were up as high as $900 per square foot.Things were going crazy here fast so I think the cooling off period is good but I don't think we'll see any kind of substantial long term drop in the market.

As I grew up in the Los Angeles greater area, the houses there have just over-inflated to prices that are way to expensive for me to invest in.

Ben, I get that the numbers are probably inflated, but why run?

And inflation will eventually push the rental income higher.

Getting my wife involved was simple, I said do you want to retire at 70 with a large sum of inflated cash not knowing how long it will last.

Definitely, western Snohomish county (30 minutes north of Seattle/Bellevue) is the next rising REI star in the Puget Sound region.