A Very Saturated Market.

[Myles Coles]

So, I am located in essentially the heart of LA, right in the middle, I have yet to make my first investment but while I'm still learning I've come across certain red flags about my area. For example I stumbled upon this article on the housing markets and this little excerpt was kind of startling.

"Even at the peak of the bubble in 2005, only 11.5 percent of homes in Los Angeles were purchased by absentee buyers -- now 25 percent are. Over the past decade in Miami, only 33 percent of homes were purchased by absentee buyers, while in 2012 42 percent were absentee. In Las Vegas, a whopping 51 percent of purchases consisted of absentee transactions; while this is more typical in a vacation destination like Las Vegas, that total is still a full 10 percentage point higher than average. -Ilyce Glink"

Now by no means will this deter me from pursuing my REI dreams but it does make me rather cautious about trying to make my area my primary market. My question is, would anyone suggest me starting here and just do my best or start somewhere else more practical.

This brings me back to another excerpt from this book I'm reading called The University of Success, and in this little passage there was a short story about a man. A man who wanted to find diamonds so that he could sell them and feed his family forever. To summarize it a bit, he went on this journey and was unsuccessful, he couldn't bare returning home empty handed so he flung himself into the ocean never to be seen again. Back at his home where there was someone new living there and while he was out back letting his animals drink he noticed something shining at the bottom of the river bed. He dug it up and sure enough it was a diamond, he had stumbled across the biggest diamond mine ever. The moral of the story was to Grow and prosper in our own acre of diamonds.

I want to succeed in REI more than just about anything in this world, and nothing can stop me, thanks for reading.

[Brian Whitten]

Michael Evans is right about the Texas market. I live in Austin and it is amazing to watch the appreciation month over month. A very nice little bonus at the end of our flips!