It is about being a great husband, a great father to your children, having a wife who loves you and supports you, helping and influencing the lives of others, and having great friends who truly care for you.

Also work your sphere of influence.  

If it wasn't for BP, I'm sure I would have never have met J, who has greatly influenced and enhanced my flipping business. 

The 200 or so homes in the area nearest the Parkway (commercial/downtown area) is something we can have an influence in.

@David Dachtera I can appreciate that forecasting future real estate market projections can not be predefined as there are multiple unforeseen variables that can influence the market.

I would suggest that neither of us have any inside influence or info on banking regulations.

The counties(especially Dallas) is broke due to their own poor fiscal policies.

And since the borrowed money is fixed, and assuming healthy and stable occupancy is possible, the cash flow performance can mostly be influenced only by raising rents ahead of rising operating costs over the years.So...

More recently, my wife and I began investing in HUD repos in ’98, and did the sweat equity, buy-fix-hold thing while both still working our normal jobs, her as a Fiscal Analyst for the city, and me in Accounting & Finance for an S&P 500 company for which I’ve worked for the last 18 years.

Price swings up or down have no influence on my purchasing habits.