In 2005 I received a postcard from my former next door neighbor, a realtor, offering a townhouse in our old neighborhood in South Florida for $300,000. I couldn

In 2005 I received a postcard from my former next door neighbor, a realtor, offering a townhouse in our old neighborhood in South Florida for $300,000. I couldn't believe it: they'd been $100,000 when they were built, six years before. I'd bought mine for $140,000 in 2001 (much to the doubt and disbelief of my neighbors at the time, thinking it too much to pay.) When the advertised townhouse sold for $300,000, I started to ask 'Where did all this money come from?' I read voraciously, came to the same big picture conclusions that the people in 'The Big Short' did (I recommend both the book and the movie, at your preference), but didn't learn to make money off of it the way they did.