If someone answers questions in a thoughtful, respectful and intelligent manner with strong subject matter expertise, you can be somewhat assured that person or company takes their business, their reputation and career seriously and won't be a fly by night scam artist. 

Just watch that contract with the builder and make sure they aren't artificially inflating anything as you go. 

There really isn't an argument here...not an intelligible one, anyway...Your friend is rich right now and makes more cash flow from his current holdings than you will with 50-financed properties...roll in appreciation and he is set for life...and his family...and their kids...

@Zachary ZimmermannHey Zach - there was a good podcast a couple months ago about being careful not to set artificial timelines on a home purchase.

The 9 Month Investment: A Passive Investors Guide to Achieving 10 Years Worth of Wealth Accumulation in Only 9 MonthsThe Book on Investing in Real Estate with No (and Low) Money Down: Real Life Strategies for Investing in Real Estate Using Other People's MoneyThe Book on Rental Property Investing: How to Create Wealth With Intelligent Buy and Hold Real Estate InvestingThe Buy and Hold Real Estate Strategy: How to Secure Profits in Any Real Estate MarketThe Millionaire Real Estate InvestorThe Real Estate Game: The Intelligent Guide To Decisionmaking And InvestmentThe Weekend Millionaire's Secrets to Investing in Real Estate: How to Become Wealthy in Your Spare TimeTrammell Crow: A Legacy in Real Estate Innovation: A Legacy in Real Estate Business InnovationWhat Every Real Estate Investor Needs to Know About Cash Flow...

We renovated the heck out of it-brand new carpet, new porcelain tile and laminate flooring downstairs, epoxied the garage floor, new countertops, sink, pull down faucet, glass backsplash, new paint entire house, all new baseboards, added crown molding, and artificial turf and hard scaping front and back yard.

We're not talking about an influx of unskilled laborers... we're talking about extremely intelligent nerdy folks that live or come to California that have enabled the state to consistently lead the nation in innovation and new technologies.

Schwab has some tool like their intelligent portfolio that you can use for free.could also roll it into self directed IRA and invest it in real estate....but I like the diversification of having some money in the stock market.

You could argue that there are larger (and darker) forces creating that demand by holding interest rates artificially low, but you can't argue that low interest rates bring lots of buyers into the market. 

I truly think if you look intelligently enough you can find the numbers in most states people have mentioned.