The average American drives the nicest card they can afford to make payments on.

I just finished working the Great American Beer Festival in Denver this weekendI woulndn't put a kegerator in an STR.

Now, this isn't right or wrong, but this is how the REI/401k debate applies to my life, based on my situation, using my experiences and education, and with my final goals in mind (this is the most important part, IMO).Years ago I once heard Jim Rohn say that only 5% of Americans can survive, in retirement, off of the fruits of their own labor.

Most interpretations of like kind for non-real estate assets use the North American Industrial Classification code. 

This is why relationships are critical in syndications and not as much when investing in a typical mutual fund/ETF portfolio.Don't mistake a rising tide - the RE market being up for 9 years - for operational intelligence. not directed toward @omar khan, but just to leave here as information a post I made in a thread a month ago that is appropriate here:when I first started researching investing in syndications, one of the first web pages I found was this:http://www.nasaa.org/22284/informed-investor-alert-private-placement-offerings/ Private Placements and the Risk of FraudEntities raising capital through private placements often have a limited operating history and typically have more modest revenue streams than larger companies.Because private placement offerings made in reliance on Rule 506 of Regulation D are not reviewed by regulators, they have become a haven for fraud.According to the most recent enforcement statistics from the North American Securities Administrators Association, private placement offerings are the most frequent source of enforcement cases conducted by state securities regulators.

Then I told him my father who bred American Staffordshire Terriers and started petting his dog.

American these days are complaining home price is so expensive blablabla the very reason why home price is expensive is that one guy or one family is occupying too much space, it is no longer making sense for a 10k square foot house has only three or two people living in it.

Either way is fine.Speaking as an American, my feelings are more complicated. 

@Stanley BronsteinEscrow is used in 99.99 percent of American real estate deals.

At the end of the day, this is American, the number 1 capitalist country on the face of the planet.