When my wife and I talked about moving there, our friend who did flood modeling for the army corp of enginners strongly suggested not moving there—the flooding from Harvey should not be considered a freak occurrence but rather something that will occur regularly (every 25 years or so).I am not making a prediction just some additional food for thought.

Where modulars win are in three categories:  harsh weather environments (which we don't have in the mid-Atlantic), design fees (by reusing the same design over and over again), and cost predictability (a normal builder will price a new design a bit higher to hedge against the unknown).  

Seems like you would just annoy the court I can't predict the future of laws, but if wealthy foreign investors are using expensive condo purchases to launder money and other investors are walking away from vacant properties and tax bills in poorer neighborhoods, I suspect the anonymity laws regarding property ownership with be changed.

And some are totally cool with it, "give me 5 minutes and I'll attest to anything short of my ability to predict the future."

If he doesn't come up to speed on investing, I predict he will hold you back and your marriage will end in divorce anyways, costing you money along the way. 

But we believe the very likely returns in real estate are higher and more predictable than the way it's currently invested in stocks.

I can't predict what future markets will be like, but I can think through my risk management approach.

I would like to ask, how do you all predict which markets will have high rates of appreciation?

Very rarely do I see a buyer's financing fall through when it couldn't have been predicted upfront had the mortgage broker been honest about the buyer's ability to qualify;5.

Truth is no one can promise what cannot be accurately predicted.