And these are some very old people with good memories.During the same half century, there have always been the outliers claiming that this time it will be different and have consistently been wrong.  

You can get the deal of the century and lose your shirt.

Baltimore City data hasn't been encouraging over the last several years - population is shrinking (they saw their biggest drop last year and lowest pop. in a century), crime continues to spike (300+ homicides a year), and businesses are leaving.  

Those are great opportunities for value add without the uncertainty (or experience) of working with century old properties. 

city county state regulators generally don't enforce deed restrictions.its up to the community were the restrictions are placed.. if its just one parcel with the restrictions.. you as declarant would have the right to defend thembut no one else if they are not subject to the same deed restrictions.it goes both ways.you look at CCRs from the turn of the century up until about the 50s  and there are all sorts of un enforceable things.having to do with Race religion  Chickens Pigs other live stock.. 

But with the Asian markets, ETFs are an effective way to regularly jump on the out-of-fashion country and ride it until it is back to normal, and then jump on the next out of fashion country, etc.It is important for all of us to realize that this century looks like it might be the greatest period of economic growth in the history of the world.

Century 21 Greenville was the front man (active MLS listing agent) they would not take any offers and sent us to the auction and W&W.

However, There are many ways to modernize the mid century ranch.

Unless the FDIC wants to play Scrooge and close 8 more banks before the end of the year, it does NOT look like we will hit the century mark unlike the last 2 years (140 in 2009 and 157 in 2011).Of course the assets in these failed banks are up over prior years.

For further reading on the subject I suggest you read about "Tulipmania", the "dot-com boom" of the late '90s and the "real estate boom" of the early 21st century, whoooops!