Is this REALLY a good time to buy real estate?

[le roi]

Originally Posted by Bulldog77

I have friend who owns a house and still owes on it, and also owns a vacant lot which he still owes on. Instead of paying off the lot or paying down his house, he purchased a rental house. Was this really a good move on his part? He's in his early 30s and has plenty of time to pay off the debt but there is quite a bit of debt there.

Others are telling me that if they had the cash, they would be spending it all on real estate. Prices are down and interest rates are low, but won't prices fall further when interest rates start to increase? Is this a normal real estate crash like we had in the early 90s or something bigger that will take decades to recover from?

Time is not the issue. Price is the issue.

Price is highly variable from one property to another ,from one seller to another.

[GoCUBS1]

Originally Posted by le roi

Time is not the issue. Price is the issue.

Price is highly variable from one property to another ,from one seller to another.

Agree, and MARKET is also the issue. Where is this rental house located? Is it in an up & coming yuppie market (e.g. near a new corporate HQ or an area that is gentrifying)? Or a stable low-mid Section 8 market (e.g. a poorer area in a stable town feeding into a good school system)? Or is it in an area that may be "turning" due to crime? Is it in an over-saturated vacation area where thousands are trying to rent our their homes (e.g. areas of Florida, Colorado, etc.)? Or is it in an in-demand vacation area where it is difficult to find rental homes? Hopefully, before buying, this investor did a thorough market analysis perhaps putting out ads, calling competitors to guage market demand, etc.