[Porsche-O-Phile]

Thanks for the info guys I appreciate it and sorry for being so financially obtuse. I admit I know nothing about "the system" and deal more with design & technical issues than the real-estate side of things. Time to learn it I guess. . .

As far as commercial property (although it pertains to residential too) one VERY limiting factor is the "money up front" thing. I don't have much of it at all, unless you count 401K and investments. I'm not so sure I'd want to raid those for a RE venture although OTOH maybe it would make sense if the return rates were higher. Side note: one of my 401K funds did DAMN well last year, yielding a 30%+ return. Maybe it'll sustain it, maybe it won't, but I doubt I'd be in a hurry to pull money out of THAT and plunk it into a volitile RE market. . .

Anyway, it seems that the state of the current market is very much that if you own property, you're fine. You can sell and take the amount you've made (or a portion of it) as a 20% down (or more) towards a newer, larger place with a very favorable loan. For someone like myself that has never owned, coming up with 20% of a $400,000 or $500,000 place is simply out of the question. If we cut EVERYTHING out of our lives except bills and bare necessities we MIGHT be able to save $10,000 a year - let's face it, cost of living is going up and inflation is on the rise no matter what the skewed government numbers say. Even at that rate, you're a full 8-10 years from getting into a place and by then the "point of maximum opportunity" to get into the market will be long past and prices might be even higher (necessitating more down payment, etc.)

Ideally I want a compromise between a "good" loan and being able to get in at the right time. I'm betting that in the long run it's more advantageous to get in at the right time with zero down or 5% down than it is to get in at a bad time with 20% down. If I can get a zero-down loan or a 5% down loan and just deal with the less-than-ideal loan terms for 5-10 years until the next cycle comes around I can simply refi with the equity I'll then have and be able to switch into a much more favorable loan. In that regard, I've at least made my "housing cost" money count for something other than making a landlord rich.

I'm not too eager to rush out and do that right now though - there are a lot of people in zero-down loans or minimal-down loans right now that are going to lose their shirts on a correction. This is (I'm estimating) in the 2-3 years out type of range although it could be sooner depending on how quickly the market crashes or deflates.

What do you guy think of those "make-lenders-compete-for-you" web sites? Good resource? Bad idea? Phishing scams? Not worth the risk?