And anything I can do that makes me and a fellow freeper more prosperous is good in my book.
A quick anecdotal story about real estate. My in-laws owned a townhome outside of Pensacola Florida. They were positions to sell it at a hefty profit in August of '04 and then retire. Hurrican Charley struck Florida and all insurance Co's with binding new business and the sale was put on hold. Before they could finalize, Ivan struck Pensacola and damaged both the property for sale and the condo they had just purchased as it's replacement.
In addition, my FIL's work project was struck and put on hold for over 6 months.
They expected to retire as soon as the sale was finalized. A year and a half later, they are still trying to sell the property (Hurricane Dennis damage to repair) and also recovering from the setback of a recent surgery for compressed disks in his back; a product of being a workaholic trying to maintain retirement goals while juggling the debt of buying real estate in Florida.
Their current expectation is that he'll need to work at least 3 or 4 more years to fully recover from the hits they took from the hurricane damage to their properties.
I'm not only debt-averse, I'm also adverse to the risk that is inherent to it.