For those of you who are unfamiliar, a man was able to trade his up from a red paperclip to buy an entire house in just under a year...You can read the story and see the various trades he made here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_red_paperclipThese trades happened all over North America, and were done as somehwat of an experiment.

And then trade up.

I do it about once a month or so (admittedly I have slacked off during the holiday season, but I'm kicking into high gear over the next couple of weeks)In the end it seems like a trade off to me.

However, using a publicly traded company's stock as an example in a real estate discussion is a great marketing ploy, but poor argument.

What trades?

There are small one man shows that are jacks of all trades, and masters of none.

The activity is a trade or business2.

American Bank and Neffs are now private banks (no longer publicly traded) per SEC filings for Neffs and and American bankNone of these banks have a Performance issue, and in fact non-current loans for American Bank are $0 in latest YTD FDIC reports.

Hold for a period of time and re-trade the asset.The low balance and value of the real property will be a barrier for the borrower to conventionally refinance.

John Jabson there is always a trade-off.