The broker for the property, Brian Harp, BLH Property Management, has repeated ignored requests to return our $500 deposit and made numerous excuses for not sending it (been travelling, can't find papers, .....).

I do not feel this thread has been hijacked, and I really enjoy, and respect, David's opinion and experience.This is what I feel people are missing: All sides here are correct to some extent.Real estate has so many different roads a person can travel.

I was instantly in the zone: getting in touch with title companies, putting together the paperwork, getting it submitted to the county recorder, project done completed successfully.

But you need to file those requests and complaints in writing, Document and record everything you can, keep a log.

Anything you can truly own is a very strong position to be in.As to one thing to do with precious metals - an idea that came to my mind that I can't condone was get as many credit cards as you can, use them to buy precious metals, convert the precious metals back to currency, use the currency to purchase income producing assets free and clear and if Armageddon hits - default on your non recourse credit card loans and ride out the 7 years of "recovery" when there's going to be little to no credit available anyway and start anew 7 years down the road when you're credit record is cleared out and you have appreciating, free and clear, income producing assets....with a clear credit record.

I would not loan on this deal for only an interest rate, but only for at least 50% of the profits and would want to see a track record from you.

Just curious if there are any good stories out there...I'll start - Around early 1990's still in college and had some time to burn, was browsing books at Tower Records down in Marina Del Rey and saw something like "how to buy government land for pennies per acre."

Did you lock the property with an affidavit of memorandum and had it recorded?

Also, do you have properly recorded documents for the loan?

Months later...Josh Cantwell, "rementor", (a guru) claims to be using this effectively in a short sale context, and claims in 70% of cases, a recorded memo of options satisfies title seasoning requirements too, as long as it takes 3+ months to get the SS approved/closed, not unusual at all.