Plus there has been much development in that area and it borders w/ lower kensington & Northern Liberties which are all areas that are booming right now.

My reasoning behind this is, I am developing less than 1-2 acres of land.

I come from Paris, France not Texas, I am 36, I have recently been transfered with my family by my company (software editor) to the San Francisco area under an L1 Visa for 3 years.

Now you have to do very well to recover...and the muscles you develop from running with anchors on your heels will only serve you to perform GREATLY once the anchors are gone.

The law has the effect of raising the HOA dues when the projects are first sold as the developer can not set a low level and ignore future work.See if there are any state regulations that define what an HOA needs to do.

With builders and developers offering all sorts of incentives like Paid Closing Cost, New Appliance Packages, HOA Fees Paid for 1 to 2 yrs, Mortgage Paid for 1 to 2 yrs... it's very easy to see why properties are staying on the market for longer times.

Stuff like:Are they an angry landlordAre they current in their billsJob transferDivorceDefaultugly housesYou know.... all of that motivated seller stuff that is listed in every book on real estate investing.Your job is to learn the art of what I call in my book "Verbal Judo" You have to skillfully develope a style that gets you the information that you need while putting the seller at ease.

*Reason for incentives is because developer is refunding 10% down payment required and wants to hurry and sell units for a quick turnover.

I've been in real estate for a couple of years, but as a builders/developers rep selling new construction in tract communities, and so this mixed downtown neighborhood was a tough one for me.

I love their quick development time and access to lots of add-ons (such as IDX, contact pages, and even blogs) that I would have had to build manually.