Real estate can be a high quality investment when chosen carefully, with professional help and due diligence.

Hi;Please help me, if you can.After lasting 8 months legal case, I was left without any income, present or future , and what I saved is condominium in California, 500,000-600,000 worth, clean and free, but also this is my only home, where I am living for the last 15 years.I was talking to 4 different loan agents about my option for the loan .Local places, chosen random from Yellow Pages.Knowing my data, all of them gave to me the same loan amount for which I can qualify ($400,000) and more and less similar , very low in my opinion, payments options, basing on 30 years loan.($2200-$2500 range)However, when I checked with large banks, just filling up the application on line, with the same data , result of payment amount is even twice as much comparing with some of the estimates from places I called.Please tell me; are these small companies crooks ?

But anyone who thinks that appreciation is going to bail them out of a low or negative cashflow situation is gambling, pure and simple.

I am not willing to gamble that much to be the one that ends up being the case law around it.

We're glad you've chosen our*excellent* forum.Chime right in with any answersto questions or anything you want to say.

I won't gamble money that my family needs for the necessities, but the money I'm using should go to paying off bills and filling an IRA.

Its hard to gamble with downtown right now when there is some very strong potential just in the normal market.And when you state that the current projects are doing fairly, if not very, well, I think that is very relative also.

You have chosen to ignore that.

buying re, and basing all your profit (and success) on the possibility of it appreciating sounds more like gambling then investing.

Then, they are going to agree on an option price that's above market *and* doesn't mind putting down a 5K non-refundable deposit to take the gamble that he's going to be able to fix any problems that wouldn't allow him to buy that house outright in the first place.