In housing, you know the land cost, county assessment, cost to build a structure of that size. You also know the local economic trend, population growth trend, and most importantly, you know the zoning difficulties for new development. All these information won’t lie to you. They are readily available from county planning department and from local non-profit research institutions. Therefore, housing investment is almost like a risk-free investment to an EXPERIENCED investor. If a house is sold at 30% below county assessment, and already close to land cost, you know you get a deal.

Why most people won’t do it? because it’s time consuming, most people can’t become a landlord. Holding period of 8-10 years will scare them. People like quick-in, quick-out type full-liguid investment. They are afraid of hassles from holding such a long term asset.

So, housing investment is both easy and hard, depending on how you look at it.