I've lived in booming cities that experience 10% annual growth in the real-estate market for 15 years straight - those places went from livable to way too expen

I've lived in booming cities that experience 10% annual growth in the real-estate market for 15 years straight - those places went from livable to way too expensive in that short period of time. The RE investors, or rather - landlords - all know that it's not the rent that made them money, it was the annual growth. The rent was just there to cover any expenses tied up to the properties. Lots of shitty "landlords" emerged as the market got hotter. Everyone and their mother wanted to get in on the action. These people had/have zero intentions in providing a good service to their tenants. I went to school with some guys that had built up $10M-$15M RE portfolios in as little as 5-10 years. It's all about cutting costs to the extreme, so that you can pump the saved money into buying more properties.