Even though they can cash flow, the market demographic can be very undesirable and unstable.

The development cycles are so unstable.

The market was VERY unstable - I wouldn't touch this if I didn't have a 30% margin.Remember this is a business designed on the premise of making money - get your ducks lined up in advance or get out of the water and lookk for a new place to enter.If you think it is "skinny" now - why risk it?

Those market conditions created a means for a flipper to buy a distressed property at a great price, fix it, then sell it first day on the MLS, often will multiple bids because buyers were standing in line to get the tax credit and the one or two standard sales that were in that area, one of them being mine.Today, we have an unstable market which is currently declining so if you cant get in and out inside of 4 months, you need to factor in depreciation into your buy price and you also need to allow for longer listing times as there are much fewer buyers out there and much more inventory avialable.In a hot market, prices are increasing so a longer hold time does not hurt you, it usually helps you (as Mitch stated in his quote of Bruce Norris).

An investor's dream.... but the unstable political and economical situation as well as the high taxes on properties keeps people away. 

@Dennis Nikolaev There is a mass exodus in Illinois...Economically and politically unstable.

It takes time of course but its not nearly as unstable as windows.

As someone who is, lets just say "runs into the possibility of being financially unstable" I'm guessing active investing would be better, or no?

One time ir was about a chimney leaning two inches away from the building (the soil underneath had become unstable due to a long time water main leak).  

This actually IMO creates a market that is unstable and hard to understand from a technical perspective.