Tim, I think that you undercut yourself as a reliable thinker with this kind of article. Making money, independently of being employed, is never easy and real estate is one of the last opportunities in which the tax code favors the individual investor. Additionally, money is currently cheaper than the cost of inflation so now is a good time to borrow. I could go on with more reasons to be positive about real estate investing but I think you get the point. Do real estate investments fail? Sure they do but that's not a reason to avoid them. It's a reason to be smarter about purchasing and over-leveraging assets. Of course, that's just my opinion.