Podcast 74 is a must-listen if you feel discouraged about high home prices
I've spent hundreds of hours reading books and listening to podcasts. The podcasts repeatedly say, "don't be afraid -- act!" I thought my book knowledge and my podcast knowledge together had me ready enough to get my feet wet. It was time to learn on the fly...I knew enough to not fail miserably, though certainly not enough to hit a home run (which is not my goal anyway). It was time to learn by doing.
This is when I seriously checked home prices and rent prices. Everything I had seen about the 2% rule made any deal seem impossible (this is in the New Orleans area). Hell, even changing the rule to a 1% rule still made finding properties difficult. So then I thought, "I'll go back door to good prices via foreclosures."
This great site has a forum on foreclosures; and better yet, it even has some articles on the foreclosure process. This is where I learned that in the foreclosure process I would be competing against seasoned veterans, financial players, and representatives of banks. Clearly this was not for me, either (though some may have enough innate financial savvy to pull this off, I certainly do not). I was now resigned to waiting for a great RE market crash to make any moves at all (and obviously this is not really good for anyone).
Then I stumbled upon podcast 74. I wasn't expecting much, but I figured it would help pass time at the gym. The first guest was awesome. He lives in the San Fran area, and the high prices of the New Orleans area pale in comparison to the SF area. This guy found a way around it. He said, "screw the high prices here, I'm going to travel an hour or two away to make this work." (By the way, all of these quotes are liberally indirect). And he did make it work.
Anyway, I have a feeling that many people have felt like me, but there is a way to make it work. So great podcast 74!