Real Estate Still Working:

Time to look in your own backyard for today's best investments -- distress housing and cheap land. The housing boom is busting as banks retrieve houses (and land) from borrowers they never should have lent money to. Bought at the right price, the land and the housing will prove bargains. The reasons:

First: Inflation in the housing business It's staggering. Everything costs more today than it cost yesterday. Far more. The replacement cost of good housing is skyrocketing. I know intimately. A buddy is building a new house. You will never be able to build for what you can buy distress today -- nowhere close. This alone will ensure housing is a great investment.

Second: No one is making new land. You can't even outsource its manufacture to India, or China.

Third: This time may be your last opportunity before the next housing bubble takes prices up again. The demand for housing is not dead. It's just ebbing. Remember someone has to eventually house those 150,000 new jobs we're creating every month.

Caveats:
1. Don't buy in an area you don't know.
2. The one-in-a-hundred rule applies. The people in the bank will get the first bite at distress property. What you see -- unless your brother works in your local bank -- may be a secondhand opportunity. One that no one else wants -- for a sound reason. Be wary of most of what you see.
3. Develop a check list. Run the property against it. Saves time. Tell your brokers what you're looking for and assure them you'll move fast.
4. Don't borrow heavily. Do not underestimate how long you might have to hold this property before you can sell it.
5. There are heavy carrying costs with real estate -- taxes being primary. But also the interest and principal on the loan you took out to borrow the property.

It seems that:
+ We built a lot of houses in the past few years.
+ We converted a lot of office buildings into housing condominiums.
+ We ended that cycle with a shortage of offices.
+ Half the approx. 150,000 new jobs the U.S. is creating each month is going to work in offices.
+ The U.S. is building office space at half the pace it historically has.
+ We are now below the 13% nationwide office vacancy rate, which the industry regards as a sort of equilibrium rate. Below that, rents rise rapidly.
+ Office rents are rising strongly in the major real estate markets of New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, etc.

Now read: HOW TO PROFIT FROM THE OFFICE CONDO BOOM NOW!