I'm in CA and here we are pretty much at 2001 levels (in my area anyway) I just bought a few months ago (august)a house for 219k. Coincidently that was the average price for all 80+ homes sold so i actually bought at the EXACT average home price in my area. This month the average home price for the 89 homes sold so far this month is 226k. Meaning I've made 3% on my home in 2 1/2 months. I think his advice might be ok for the rest of the country, but the west side, things are starting to move fast. I'm surprised that he is from the west coast and said that. I'm also guess he has made alot of mistakes. I mean if you are driving a beat up truck and wont even spring for a cell phone, I think he must be losing as much on some deals as he is making, especially going wild into buying forclosures where he cant possibly have time to examine in detail everything and must lose money on some of these deal. I wouldnt be surprised if he barely breaks even and is lying about being frugal...he probably just cant afford a cell phone or a new car.
Some of the well known real estate busts result in 8-12 years of slump in the realty market. If the market is a two-tier one, the high end properties will stablize first as the demand for these properties come back faster. For the low end ones, especially the old condos and apartments, their maintenance costs go way up after 8-12 years, making them much harder to come back until another boom is around.
& I thought I was the last person in the world without a cell phone... I'm still not convinced those things will catch on.
2010 still seems like not enough time. I would say a good 5 years from the top. 2012-2015. I would be a buyer if real estate came down to under 2000 prices, but that seems like a long way to go on this chart. I dont see real estate falling so fast because of stubborn sellers. I would say it would take 2-3 times longer then what happens in the stock market. According to the below graph, we have a long way to go. If housing were a stock and this were the chart, then at this point you would probably get real short and at some point there would be a horrific drop. Dont knock this guy. Not one of you can get in that good of a shape at age 25, let alone age 45.
The fact that he drives a beat up truck, and that you find that to be evidence that he is not doing well, shows your ignorance of what it takes to amass great wealth. Typical American attitude that got us where we are in this country - the myth of "look rich" and have negative net worth.
I am in orlando . My house peaked at $400,000 and one sold last week for $199,000 and it was at pre forclosure.