I think I am better educated and mentally prepared

I made the decision based on the population increase, median household income and median house price. I knew the real estate had to go up, but did not know when it would go up and how much it would go up. That's why I want to be an investor instead of a flipper.

For the next five years, my best guess would be that the RE market would be fairly quiet and flat, or increase slowly, but for the next 10 or 20 years, it WILL GO UP A LOT.