It can be. If you want a home to live in, real estate is one of the best opportunities it’s ever been.  If you want an investment, real estate CAN be a wonderful opportunity. As always, you have to “buy right,” and it’s easier right now than at any time in recent memory.  The multitudes of speculators who wanted to “flip” houses are gone, and many of the homes they bought to flip are on the market, overpriced and underfixed, while the “regular” buyers go and buy something else.  It’s sorta what happens when the market slows a bit, and the “cash” buyers no longer have the leverage that they did. Financing is still a bit tough, but it IS available, and the rates are low enough, and the home prices are so good, that buying and renting almost compare today.

If you’ve been following the news about this, you’ve heard things like, “there were some technical errors,” or, “this is confined to other states,” or, “these are just deadbeats who are suing the poor lender.”  NONE of this is true. These things matter to you because of the difficulty of securing clear title to the property you buy.  Technical details aside, here are the most important things for you to know:
1.  For the time being, we are advising clients to buy only if they can get a valid title policy from a title company with plenty of money to pay claims.  Why? Because as this all winds down, many title companies are going to be “on the hook” for claims based on invalid or clouded title.
2. We intend to look very carefully at every preliminary title report for any issues that we can find, but we will not guarantee that we won’t make a mistake.  The title policy itself is your only real warranty.
3.  It is probably unwise, for the time being, to buy at the Trustee’s Sale auctions.  These properties come without policies of title insurance, and you must apply for the policy afterwards.

This is an article by First Tuesday, a real estate education company:

http://firsttuesdayjournal.com/the-ltv-tipping-point-when-negative-equity-owners-are-most-likely-to-strategically-default/

This article summarizes many of the frustrations those “in the know” feel right now, when attempting to navigate the extremely strange marketplace we are in:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-09-13/economic-docs-find-remedy-amid-bubble-rubble-commentary-by-caroline-baum.html