Trading into a new property soley on the basis of being able to do a 1031 exchange does not seam like it would be a real strong reason to do so.

Even further, FCI for example, does not report mortgage trade lines to the credit repositories, so if the strategy is to see them refinance away from you, ensure they are getting credit for making payments on time via your mortgage servicer.4.

I was visiting with BP member Danny Day at his current renovation and during our conversation it came up that we should try and get some of the Houston BP members together to network and trade stories.So let's set a day for May 7th at 6:30pm at Block 7 Wine Company in the Heights.

Some of this you can get in college and some of it is better to learn in trade schools or by reading forums and blogs.

You seem to be a jack of all trades - good luck.Chris

I think the lesson is that as a successful business owner/real estate investor, you tend to be a bit of a jack of all trades and and a specialist in only one area.

Over the past year, studying investing in my spare time has become a very active hobby; I day trade forex in small amounts, buy and hold stocks (dividends + selling occasional covered calls), and have been trying to in general be very frugal and conservative (no cable TV, negotiated down all my living costs, got a roommate in to cover the mortgage) and put away a very large percentage of my income.

While I have never worked in the field, I did go to trade school for a year and a half, where I was promised that I would know how to troubleshoot and install my own residential equipment.

This is similar to saying the stock market is a get rich slow business...it depends on what you are doing (day trading options vs holding mutual funds).

I do NOT believe that there will be a huge uptick in home prices over the next 3 years because there are still a large number of underwater homeowners who cannot trade up yet until they have equity in their existing homes.