He teaches that buying real estate purely for appreciation is gambling and should instead be viewed as the icing on the cake.I invest in Ohio :)

@Brian Nel Just an observation.....on your back, unless you plan on it being a pure rental property before you sell....whatever portion you depreciate will not be eligible for for your 121 primary exclusion.

For pure short term rental, further Southwest Austin has a ton of wedding venues with hill country appeal that also do well in peak season for rentals. 

This thread and specifically this post is pure gold.

My guess (and it's purely that) is that the densely populated coasts will be hit somewhat harder by mortgage woes. 

Based on your post, it looks like these will be purely investment properties.

- it wont make much of a difference, but if it is rented then i have a chance to recover the money over a period of time. these properties are purely cash flow, it wont sell it for more.

If its purely an investment property with no personal use or emotion, there are less options and it will take longer to find (but not impossible). 

Okay I think the big thing here is to understand the risks to purely wholesalingYou need money for marketing,  a good area for cash Buyers that are buying now,savings for personal expenses plus savings for marketing and other business expensesSo if it takes you three grand a month personal expenses plus another two grand of business expenses that's 6 months  x 5k or 30,000Now if you're a transaction engineer, you can also go after expired listings and help sellers sell pretty houses with lease option assignmentsOr you can buy on sub2 or a wrapYour exit strategy can be lease to own and earn 3%Or on a minor rehab,  you can do a joint venture with the seller, give the seller a note with no payments for their equity for four months, use private money for the minor rehab, and resell to a retail buyer.  

Or, yes, mandate commissions on all the properties the the government is going to end up selling.There's no way around the fact that any bailout is pure socialism.