Soon after I discovered leveraged currency trading where margin requirements were low and I was hooked.  

Purchase price of real estate increases by the same amount the value currency decreases.This accomplishes the first objective of protecting buying power.

I found myself here after googling something about an Investopedia email (got an offer for an "Unlimited Funding Investor Kit") and realized I can learn everything here instead.I'm really new to investing and have only thought about investing in RE in the future, so I might not be active right now, but I bookmarked the page for later; I started trading currencies less than a month ago so I've been spending time learning the in's and out's of that one.Glad to be here and I hope to learn as well as teach!

The Chinese government devalued their currency.

However, the local economy was doing well, the dollar to pound was favorable (we got loans from a local British lender), and we bought slight fixers to live-in and improve, with a goal of selling for a profit and making gains on the currency trade.  

Aside from establishing whether a specific property is well priced, the currency, taxation, legal framework and property management areas will be the most important ones to research.

But this is not true asset appreciation as much as it is currency devaluation.

It's value as a currency is based on the fact that supply and demand are inherently self regulated. 

If you are transferring money to the states from the UK, you'll already make 54 points off of the currency exchange as the Pound is worth $1.54USD. 

I originally had set it up to do currency trading (dad's idea) but regulations tightened during the long process of setting it all up, and then I didn't qualify.