when one says 'real estate' you have to define exactly what you mean. it could be 1) buy and renting homes 2) buying and selling your own home 3) pro developer 4) land speculator 5) builder 6) buying homes and improving them 7) commercial yada yada yada My comments: 1) It sucks, you gotta deal with some real low lifes sometimes who don't pay and you gotta do upkeep 2) Crap shoot, works only in the select hot markets. WSJ did a study, owning your own home cost 3x purchase price over the years. Upkeep is a big money drain 3) I have seen big money made, I am talking about people who buy land, put in street and sewer, then sell the lots. 4) can be okay, pretty stable, but big $ is owning near a growing burb 5) don't know too much, some seem to do okay and others struggle. Not really speculating. Most times builder/developer the same people 6) Can work, but mostly sucks and it takes a lot of time and energy. Need to love this sort of thing. 7) I have heard this is where the froth is right now, people buying and selling condos before they are even done building- better know what you are doing.
Condos nothing but the New Tulip. In fact, they should name a development just that, see if the pinheads get the joke.
I think maybe you're all being just a little bit disingenous with each other (and yourselves). The reason for trading in preference to other financial endeavors is that it's a rush. No other pecuniary action, other than pure gambling, gives you that "rush" in addition to the money (and pure gambling is, for the most part, for losers). You get the sweet knowledge that you were right when others were wrong, and you get it today -- instantaneously, and not 5 years from now. Life just ain't livin' if you ain't livin' on the razor's edge! -- kjkent1
Perseus T0 Perseus: Right on.. You made all Good points to consider... -------------------------------------------------------------- 07-17-05 10:06 AM when one says 'real estate' you have to define exactly what you mean. it could be 1) buy and renting homes 2) buying and selling your own home 3) pro developer 4) land speculator 5) etc 6) etc
In Summary: Trend is your friend...............find what is the hot trend today and ride it just before it hits the wall and bail out with good profits. In 90s the trend was internet and that made quite a few millionaires and several billionaires. What is the trend in 2000s.......oil and commodities I think. There was a talk about bio-genetics and bio-engineering but that seems to not have materialized. By the way, Trend can be up or down, so if you find some sucker fading out then go short and play it market neutral. Regarding Trading vs Real Estate, the difference I find is in trading people get wiped out and in real estate they go into dips but if they stick it out eventually they can come ahead and still have something to show.