Assuming your mother and yourself each have your own residences, your 2 households own 12 properties. Your situation isn't unique. Investors over the past decad

Assuming your mother and yourself each have your own residences, your 2 households own 12 properties. Your situation isn't unique. Investors over the past decade went on a massive buying spree that has reduced the pool of affordable, available homes. Assuming you put down 20k on the 100k homes, you've returned 500%. That is incredible, but also fairly common story from the past few years. "I made it rich with real estate!" "How?" "Easy, buy at a historically low price." The word is out, it's not a secret to success anymore. There is a pile of money out there waiting to invest in under-priced homes. This drives prices up! Because of this, a recession will not trigger a home price drop. Property values will likely remain stable/inflated until something happens to break whatever math it is that keeps investors invested. It's the massive stockpile of homes investors gobbled up in 2009-12 that need to be released back to the market. It is a self-perpetuating cycle, people rent a home because home prices are too high due to investor held inventory. Then investors keep renting their asset out because renters don't graduate to buying. I could be way off, or have missed something obvious, but I don't think real-estate is going to be the big moneymaker form this recession unless something happens to dramatically increase inventory in places with jobs.