People lost jobs and speculators lost out.

- and having Grandma own shares equivalent to her investment, or some similar strategy.Never speculate!

Hard money lending is also an option if you can limit the hold period, your cash flow can help you pay it back quickly.I can only speculate what you're trying to do to be able to generate $20k on a SFR, but just be careful because San Francisco is not a friendly to landlords and investors.

Started speculating in vacant land.

Keep in mind this market is pure speculation, you wont find anything that is close to cashflowing down there so people buying units as rentals will crash and burn if appreciation doesnt save their asses.

Ski train from Denver and less time on I-70 is enticing for those living in Denver.Vail is too expensive for a solid ROI, however, opportunity occasionally presents itself in/around Beaver Creek or other Eagle County neighborhoods, but one would be looking at (speculating on) appreciation to balance a lower ROI here.

Biggest lessons I've picked up from folks who made it through: Don't be overleveraged, invest for cash flow, don't speculate on appreciation. 

Our strategy is based solely on making sure the profit is made at the time of purchase and not on speculative appreciation months or years down the road.

Plus, you can also access the entire spectrum of investments: debt/equity, commercial/residential, income generating/speculative.

I mean for instance, are we seeing a waterfall from Nor.Cal. and a trickle from Florida or Chicago.Also, it seems like a lot of bigger downs for the (speculative) financing comes out of just a handful of states, NY, FLA, Calf, TX, etc... and when a loan goes down those LP's are taking a loss too.