That peaked my interest to learn more about this class of investments to better help them and understand their situation, as well as for my own knowledge. 

average sale price for 3 bedroom in the town: $274,000 Listed price for this property: 300K (which i think is pretty close to FMV) House was last sold to the current owner in 1999 for 195K Based on the amortization of the mortgage, i estimate that the balance of the remaining mortgage is around 170K I've talked to some RE agents and they tell me they can get around 20% off fair market value of the home (around 30% off the remaining mortgage) if they do a short sale in the area, but i think those are for homes that were purchased during the peak.

Replumb house in PEX with new waterheater 1500, new furnace and T-stat 1500, average roof and gutters W/O redeck 8k, inside paint 1500, average new porch 2500, blinds 500 (you can window peak need blinds), and the unknown bug damage and inside repairs.

He bought the house for $130K (plus whatever repairs were needed at that time) and it appreciated to $270K at it's peak (according to the appraisal).

My interest in real estate was peaked further when I landed an office manager job for a RE office during the RE boom in South FL but unfortunately we had to move to Houston unexpectedly and were never able to cash in on the South FL boom.

I first got involved in Real Estate investing around 2001, and of course, sometime around 2009, it was "bye-bye baby" lol.....but my partners and I did manage to turn some money in the neighborhood of $1.2 to $1.9 M.

I'm looking down in Santa Rosa beach area which has a long peak season. 

If rents kind of have peaked and is slowing and many rentals on the market then maybe the sale of condo's has more demand.Renting versus buying the tenant to owner will also be doing an evaluation.

The money is not liquid and you can say bye to it for 3 years once I put it in. 

While in the US the real estate market is almost at it's peak, here it is at it's bottom.