He is comfortable right where he is right now - we have a house, we have good paychecks, he works at oil wells (Schlumberger) and he loves being outdoors (play in the mud type thing), he loves his co-workers, he has his wine hobby (he makes wine and recently started making beer), we are all healthy and, except for a not so good credit, we have no problems.

Smart investors won't make an offer with just any agent--they want their offer presented by the listing agent to have an edge over this unfair play.

This is the only way for me to get into the investment game, ie...Low Credit Scores and now money up front.

i actually saw one of those episodes where the guy doing it really was on top of his game.

However its still really hard for us newbie investors with no proven track record to get a bank large or small to give us a loan on an investment with none of our own "skin in the game" so to speak.

if your going with financing and a longer closing then you will have to show the bank your well qualified and pretty much play by their rules (their conditions, timeline, etc.) if they don't have any other offers or any cash offers (the bank i work with will take deep discounts for cash and fast closings (2 weeks or less)) you may make a higher offer but if the bank can get it off the books before the end of the month with a deep discounted cash offer then they will seriously look at it, even if they lose some money.

Andrea,Your signature closes with "wanting to get in the game".You have to decide what game you want to be in.

I assume you are buying for cash and there is no mortgage.Like I indicated, selling the property is a timing game to some extent and only by knowing local market conditions can you determine what may be the best time to sell a property from an appreciation standpoint.

International investing is a whole 'nother ball game.

Definitely age does play a part in value.... oh and condos are certainly age driven when it comes to value.I think it has to do in part, with the type of property building materials that were used back in the depression era vs those materials used post depression era...