New REIs especially need to learn that "traditional" financing is a dead-last resort instead of a first choice.

Hey i like the open space living room that you and your wife have created, and a nice choice of colors!

Would you consider a HELOC a wise choice?

Give them three options:1-year least at 10% increase2-year lease at 5% increaseMonth-to-month at 20% increaseNow it becomes their choice, not yours. 

@Steve Vaughan has a great point that you really don't want to remind people they have a choice to stay or go.

However, if you are able to use the high cost of living to your advantage, as you can as a RE investor there and other ways as well, you can turn that frown upside down ... on the financial side, the trick for me was to arrange my financial affairs such that the higher the cost of living gets, the wealthier I get, but I will still be ok and wealthy if that doesn't happy ... then my happiness is only limited by the 405 freeway (joke, not really), which I only need to use if I want to leave the 6th happiest city, which would almost always be by choice and not necessity, again by design :) So, I guess my point is that you can engineer your lifestyle for maximum happiness no matter where you live, and that is a worthy metric to optimize around, but some places are definitely easier to do that than others due to the nice things you can't change IMO.How is Alaska treating you?

You will need to check local regulations, but every time I've purchased a house, all the people I've spoken with (realtor, home inspector, contractors) have said the safest thing is to enclose it in place.

The choices are: paying off a mortgage, or, renting.

I'd say a savings or money market account is safest.

It is best to do it while you are young because you have time on your side and can make certain life-style choices that might not be possible with a family or other "adult" commitments.